Professional Documents
Culture Documents
http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/1
Overview of the Quest
A letter from P.B. to P.B.: (1) It is not the tyranny of the ego which is to be removed
most of all--although that is a necessary part of the Great Work - nor is it that the ego
must be uprooted and killed forever--although its old self must surrender to the new
person it has to become. No--let it live and attend to its daily work but only as a purified
being, an ennobled character or quietened mind, an enlightened man--in short, a new
ego representing what is best in the human creature. He will still be an "I" but one that
is in harmony with the Overself - a descriptive name that ought to be kept and not
discarded. So do not in your writings attack the ego as so many do, but lift it up to the
highest possibility. (2) The teachers increase daily and ask others to follow them. The
teachings multiply and the books about them too. They are not your concern. Let them
do their very much needed work. But you are to enter a new and different rhythm and
tell such as will listen that they need not be forlorn, lost, or without hope because they
find none to appeal to their heart or mind. They are asked only to follow the God within
themselves, for "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." P.B. - give this message while
giving all proper respect and honour to the teachers of today and yesterday. Those who
feel alone in this matter or who can only walk outside the groups on an independent
path should be reminded that there is a God within them who can guide and help them if
they turn to him.
General description
1
The Quest not only begins in the heart but also ends there too.
2
It is an endeavour to lift to a higher plane, and expand to a larger measure, the whole of
his identity. It brings in the most important part of himself--being, essence,
Consciousness.
3
"Man Know Thyself!" There is a whole philosophy distilled into this single and simple
statement.
4
Between the ordinary man who takes himself as he is, and the philosopher who does
exactly the same, there stands the Quester. In the first case, outlook is narrow, being
limited by attending to the inescapable necessities and demands of day-to-day living. In
the other case, peace of mind has been established, the thirst for knowledge fulfilled, the
discipline of self realized. In between these two, the Quester is not satisfied with
himself, has a strong wish to become a better and more enlightened man. He tries to
exercise his will in the struggle for realization of his ideal.
5
It lifts human consciousness vertically and enlarges human experience spiritually.
6
If the Infinite Being is trying to express its own nature within the limitations of this
earth--and therefore trying to express itself through us, too--it is our highest duty to
search for and cultivate our diviner attributes. Only in this way do we really fulfil
ourselves. This search and this cultivation constitute the Quest.
7
It offers a conception of life which originates on a higher level.
8
The Quest is both a search for truth and a dedication to the Overself.
9
By "Quest" I mean the deliberate and conscious dedication to the search for spiritual
truth, freedom, or awareness.
10
The inner meaning of life does not readily reveal itself; it must be searched for. Such a
search is the Quest.
11
When a man begins to seek out his real nature, to find the truth of his real being, he
begins to follow the Quest.
12
It is a call to those who want inner nourishment from real sources, not from fanciful or
speculative ones. It calls them away from things, appearances, shows, and externals to
their inward being, toward reality.
13
After such considerations, we are led to wonder what constitutes the reality behind the
universe. This is a quest which takes us into religion, mysticism, and philosophy and the
great mysteries of life, a quest which eventually confirms those celebrated words of
Francis Bacon: "A little thinking may incline the mind toward atheism, but greatness of
study bringeth the mind back again to God."
14
The quest we teach is no less than a quest for knowledge in completeness and a search
for awareness of this Universal Self, a vast undertaking to which all men are committed
whether they are aware of it or not.
15
The great central questions of life for the thinking man are: What am I? What is my true
relation to, and how shall I deal with, my surroundings? What is God, and can I form
any connection with God?
16
Every puzzle which fascinates innumerable persons and induces them to attempt its
solution--be it mathematical and profound or ordinary and simple--is an echo on a lower
level of the Supreme Enigma that is forever accompanying man and demanding an
answer: What is he, whence and whither? The quester puts the problem into his
conscious mind and keeps it there.
17
It is a quest to make a life of better quality, both inside and outside the self, in the
thoughts moving in the brain, in the body holding that brain, and in the environment
where that body moves.
18
It is a clarion call to man to seek his true self, a voice that asks him, "Have you found
your soul?"
19
The quest is simply the attempt of a few pioneer men to become aware of their spiritual
selves as all men are already aware of their physical selves.
20
It is a quest to become conscious of Consciousness, to explore the "I" and penetrate the
mystery of its knowing power.
21
The secret path is an attempt to establish a perfect and conscious relation between the
human mind and that divinity which is its source.
22
When a man passes from the self-seeking motives of the multitude to the Overself-
seeking aspirations of the Quest, he passes to conscious co-operation with the Divine
World-Idea.
23
It is, from another standpoint, a quest for his own centre.
24
It is the opening up of one's inner being.
25
The very idea of a quest involves a passage, a definite movement from one place to
another. Here, of course, the passage is really from one state to another. It is a holy
journey, so he who is engaged on it is truly a pilgrim. And as on many journeys,
difficulties, fatigues, obstacles, delays, and allurements may be encountered on the way,
yes! And here there will certainly be dangers, pitfalls, oppositions, and enmities too. His
intuition and reason, his books and friends, his experience and earnestness will
constitute themselves as his guide upon it. There is another special feature to be noted
about it. It is a homeward journey. The Father is waiting for his child. The Father will
receive, feed, and bless him.
26
It is a movement from the outward to the inward but it is effected only with much
labour, through much despondency, and after much time.
27
The aspirant enters on the Quest of the heavenly kingdom from the first moment that he
becomes willing to try to give up his ego. It does not matter that it will engage his whole
lifetime, that success may only be found in some future incarnation. From that first
moment he becomes a disciple of the Overself, and a candidate for the kingdom of
heaven.
28
It is a brave struggle for freedom, a noble refusal to be the ego's puppet or the animal-
self's victim, a fine resolve to win strength from weakness.
29
How shall he deliver himself from his weaknesses? How can he get free from his
pseudo-self and let his true being reveal itself? How cease to negate and begin to affirm
his own best values? The quest, with its practical disciplines and mystical exercises, is
part of the answer.
30
It is a way of life which calls him to deny his closest pleasures and oldest habits. So it is
and must be a hard way. But a time comes when he values it out of his own clearer
perception, and follows it out of his own glad choice.
31
Many aspirants wrongly believe the quest to be a movement from one psychic
experience to another or from one mystical ecstasy to another. But in fact it is a
movement in character from animality to purity, from egoism to impersonality.
32
The Quest teaches a man the art of dying to the animalistic and egoistic elements in
himself. But it does not stop with these negative results. It trains him also in the art of
re-creating himself by the light of the ideal.
33
Coming to this Quest in the philosophic sense simply means coming to human maturity.
34
Who does not prefer joy to grief? The instinct is universal. There is a metaphysical basis
for it. Individual beings derive their existence from a universal Being, whose nature is
continuously blissful. This is dimly, briefly echoed in the satisfactions of earthly desires.
The quest of spiritual fulfilment is really the search for a fuller and more lasting share in
the Divine Peace, the true heaven which awaits us in the end, whether in the freedom of
so-called death or in the confines of physical flesh.
35
The worldling seeks to enjoy himself. Do not think that the truly spiritual man does not
seek to enjoy himself too. The difference is that he does it in a better way, a wiser way.
36
Here is a goal for men and women which can bring them the fulfilment of their best
purposes, the happiness of being set free from their inward bondages, and the calmness
of knowing their own soul.
37
The Quest is a veritable re-education of the self, leading in its turn to a noble
transcendence of the self.
38
What is the quest but a process of moral re-education and mental self-conquest, a
probing for and overcoming of those faults which keep the Light out of the mind?
39
What is the hidden metaphysical meaning of the Quest? It is that the infinite self in man
finds that it cannot achieve adequate self-expression in the finite and imperfect life of
the world. The ego may try as it will, do what it may, but the bliss, wisdom, serenity,
and perfection that are the natural attributes of the Overself, in the end elude its every
move. There is ultimately no alternative except to let go of searching and grasping the
outer world, and retreat within. There, deep inside its own being the journey to enduring
satisfaction will thenceforth be. This is the Quest leading to discovery of Overself.
40
We ought perhaps to have particularized the significance of this word, for many men
and women are engaged on the food-quest, the pleasure-quest, and so on; only a few,
however, are on the Philosophical Quest.
41
Some come to the truth in a roundabout way. The Quest is direct.
42
The quest is governed by its own inherent laws, some easily ascertainable but others
darkly obscure.
43
It is a search for meaning in the meaningless flow of events. It is response to the
impulsion to look beyond the ever-passing show of earthly life for some sign, value, or
state of mind that shall confer hope, supply justification, gain insight.
44
This quest of the soul is ageless. Never has the human race been without it, never could
it be without it.
45
It is not a new thing in human experience, but rather one of the oldest. Its long history in
many lands makes impressive reading.
46
It is a method, a teaching, and an ideal combined for those who seek a genuine inner life
of the spirit.
47
The quest means disciplined emotions and disciplined living, sustained aspiration and
nurtured intuition.
48
It is not an ideal so far off that those who have realized it have no human links left with
us. On the contrary, because it is truly philosophic, it skilfully blends life in the
kingdoms of this world with life in the kingdom of heaven.
49
The quest is an adventure as well as a journey: a work to be done and a study to be
made, a blessing which gives hope and a burden of discipline which cannot be shirked.
50
There is another kind of exploration than that which traverses deserts, penetrates
jungles, climbs mountains, and crosses continents. It seeks out the mysterious
hinterlands of the human mind, scales the highest reaches of human consciousness, and
then returns to report routes and discoveries, describe the goals to others so that they
also may find their way thereto if they wish.
51
The spiritual quest is not a romantic or dramatic adventure, but a stern self-discipline.
Nevertheless there is an element of mystery in it which at times can be quite thrilling.
52
The quest is spiritual mountaineering.
53
It is not a path of anaemic joylessness for lean cadaverous votaries, as some think. It is a
path of radiant happiness for keen positive individuals.
54
Its ideals offer an invitation to nobility and refinement. "Become better than you are!" is
its preachment. "Live more beautifully than you do!" is its commandment.
55
It is an uncontentious teaching, knowing that it is, in practice, only palatable to those
who come readily equipped for it.
56
It is not a doctrine of life only for ageing hermits, but quite as much for keen young men
who wish to do something in the world. It is a practical goal which could also be a
practicable one for millions who now think it beyond their reach, if only they would
accept and act on the psychological truth that "thinking makes it so." It is a
strengthening reassurance to minds awakening from the slavish dreams of lust that they
need not stay slaves forever. It is not an asceticism that is happy only in making itself
miserable, but a comprehension that weighs values and abides by the result.
57
The quest is a continual effort of self-release from inward oppressions and self-
deliverance from emotional obstructions.
58
This quest is really a system of therapeutic training devised to cure evil feelings,
ignorant attitudes, and wrong thinking.
59
The high teachers of the human race have given us goals and taught us ways to
approach them.
60
It is not a subject for academic students of technical metaphysics or for professional
followers of institutional religion--although they are welcome to all that it has to give
them, to the richer form and the inspired understanding of their own doctrine. No--it is
primarily for the ordinary person who is willing to heed his intuitive feeling or who is
willing to use his independent thinking power.
61
It escapes pushing into recognizable and separate divisions, definitions, or groups.
62
Nature and Need of Mysticism
Let it be stated clearly that mysticism is an a-rational type of experience, and in some
degree common to all men.
The average man seldom pays enough attention to his slight mystical experiences to
profit or learn from them. Yet his need for them is evidenced by his incessant seeking
for the thrills, sensations, uplifts, and so on, which he organizes for himself in so many
ways--the religious way being only one of them. In fact, the failure of religion--in the
West, at any rate--to teach true mysticism, and its overlaying of the deeply mystic nature
of its teachings with a pseudo-rationalism and an unsound historicity may be the root
cause for driving people to seek for things greater than they feel their individual selves
to be in the many sensation-giving activities in the world today.
Mysticism not so controlled and interpreted is full of pitfalls, one of which is the
acceptance of confusion, sentimentality, cloudiness, illusion, and aimlessness as integral
qualities of the mystical life--states of mind which go far to justify opponents of
mysticism in their estimate of it as foolish and superstitious.
The mystic should recognize his own limitations. He should not refuse the proffered
hand of philosophy which will help his understanding and train his intuition. He should
recognize that it is essential to know how to interpret the material which reaches him
from his higher self, and how to receive it in all its purity.
The belief that the neglect of actual life is the beginning of spiritual life, and that the
failure to use clear thought is the beginning of guidance from God, belongs to
mysticism in its most rudimentary stages--and has no truth in it.
The world will come to believe in mysticism because there is no alternative, and it will
do so in spite of mysticism's historical weaknesses and intellectual defects. But how
much better it would be for everyone if those weaknesses and defects were self-
eliminated.
He has so learned the art of living that the experiences of everyday life yield up their
meaning to him, and the reflections of daily meditation endow him with wisdom.
If it be asked, "What is the nature of mystical experience?" the answer given very
tersely is, "It is experience which gives to the individual a slant on the universal, like the
heart's delight in the brightness of a May morning in England, or the joy of a mother in
her newborn child, in the sweetness of deep friendship, in the lilt of great poetry. It is
the language of the arts, which if approached only by intellectual ways yields only half
its content. Whoever comes eventually to mystical experience of the reality of his own
Higher Self will recognize the infinite number of ways in which nature throughout life
is beckoning him. The higher mystical experience is not a sport of nature, a freak
phenomenon. It is the continuation of a sequence the beginning and end of which are as
vast as the beginning and end of the great cycle of life in all the worlds. No man can
measure it."
The Yoga Vasistha states, "There are two kinds of paths leading to liberation. Now
hearken to them. If one should, without the least fail, follow the path laid down by a
Teacher, delusion will wear away from him little by little and emancipation will result,
either in the very birth of his initiation by his Guru or in some succeeding birth. The
other path is where the mind, being slightly fortified with a stainless spontaneous
knowledge, ceaselessly meditates upon it, and there alights true gnana in it, like fruit
falling from above unexpectedly."
There are primary and secondary levels of mind and consequently primary and
secondary products. The former are insights, the latter are intuitions.
Sages speak from the highest level; mystics contemplate, while genius speaks, writes,
paints, and composes from the secondary levels.
63
Is the inner life irreconcilable with the world's life? Religio-mystical disciplines and
practices are usually based on such a fundamental irreconcilability. Traditional teaching
usually asserts it too. Yet if that be true, "Then," as Ramana Maharshi once sceptically
said to me, "there is no hope for humanity."(P)
64
It is a teaching which prepares him to find a deep inner life without necessarily
deserting the active outer one.
65
It is a teaching which can guide us through this world without itself becoming worldly.
66
The term "spiritual" is very loosely used nowadays. It includes in its domain, but is not
limited to, certain states of mystical consciousness, certain religious mental experiences,
high moral attitudes, and non-worldly emotional reactions. Thus, one man may be
called "highly spiritual" although he may not have had any mystical experience, when
what is meant is that he is "highly moral."
67
The lower mysticism may cause a man to lose all interest in his external life, whereas
the higher mysticism imparts a new because diviner interest. If the first may enervate
him, the second will enliven him.
68
Nobody, not even its bitter critics, may question the purity and nobility of its ethics,
however much they may question the accuracy of its metaphysics.
69
This is not a quest which tries to tempt prospective candidates with the offer of
prosperity or to bribe them with the satisfaction of their desires.
70
This quest is not in the private jurisdiction of any particular group, sect, school, or
religious following. That is a narrow concept which must be firmly repudiated. It is the
quest of life itself, the need of self to comprehend its own being.
71
The Quest is not to be looked upon as something added to his life. Rather it is to be his
life itself.
72
This tormenting feeling of the lack of a spiritual state in his own experience, will drive
him to continual search for it. But his whole life must constitute the search and his
whole being must engage in it.
73
If you take the widest possible view, all the different sections of his action and thought
are inseparable from the amount of spirituality there is in a man.
74
The truth must pass from his lips to his life. And this passage will only become possible
when life itself without the quest will be meaningless.
75
It is only the beginner who needs to think of the quest as separate from the common life,
something special, aloof, apart. The more proficient knows that it must become the very
channel for that life.
76
The Quest is not anything apart from Life itself. We cannot dispense with common
sense and balance in relation to it. No single element in life can be taken too solemnly,
as if it constituted the whole of life itself, without upsetting balance.
o
The Notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989, The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation.
o Its importance and practicality
2. Its Choice
o General notes
o Qualifications
o Why people come
o Why many people don't come
o Postponing the choice
o In what sense is there a choice?
o Implications of the choice
2 - Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 2: Its Choice
Its Choice
General notes
1
Soul-finding as Life's Higher Purpose
But curb the beast would cast thee in the mire,
And leave the hot swamp of voluptuousness,
A cloud between the Nameless and thyself,
And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel,
And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou
Look higher, then--perchance--thou mayest--beyond
A hundred ever-rising lines,
And past the range of Night and Shadow--see
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day
Strike on the Mount of Vision!
One thing that struck my mind forcibly on my return to the Western hemisphere after an
absence of several years in the Orient, was the way we busied and over-busied
ourselves, whether in work, pleasure, or movement. Few take life easily; most take it
uneasily. Few go through its daily business serenely; most go through it nervously,
hurriedly, and agitatedly. Our activities are so numerous they suffocate us. It is a life
without emotional poise, bereft of intellectual perspective. We are intoxicated by action.
We moderns give ourselves too much to activity and movement, too little to passivity
and stillness. If we are to find a way out of the troubles which beset us, we must find a
middle way between these two attitudes.
The need of silence after noise, peace after feverishness, thought after activity, is wide
and deep today. Amid all the nostrums and panaceas offered to humanity there is little
evidence of the realization of this need.
Anyone who can overcome the extroverting and materializing tendencies of our period
has to be an exceptional person. Indeed a general turning towards spiritual life is not a
hope for the immediate present but for the distant future. This may sound pessimistic.
But it will discourage those only who are oppressed by the reality of time and do not
perceive its true nature.
The conditions of modern civilized society are not helpful to mystical self-culture,
although they will serve intellectual self-culture. What is first needed is a recognition of
the value of retreat, of times and places where every man and woman may periodically
and temporarily isolate himself or herself whilst withdrawing attention from worldly
affairs and giving it wholly to spiritual ones.
These words will make no appeal to the materialist mentality which still regards all
spiritual experiences as the outcome of pathological conditions. Such an attitude,
fortunately, has become less sure of itself than it was when first I embarked on these
studies and experiments, now more than thirty years ago.
The mystic who sits in an hour-long meditation is not wasting his time, even though he
is indulging in something which to the sceptic seems meaningless. On the contrary, his
meditation is of vital significance.
Wherever and whenever it can, science puts all matters to the test. Mysticism welcomes
this part of the scientific attitude. It has nothing to fear from such a practical
examination. But there is a drawback here. No scientist can test it in a laboratory. He
must test it in his own person and over a long period.
Owing to the widespread ignorance of the subject, there are some people who are
disturbed by various fears of meditation. They believe it to be harmful to mental sanity
or even a kind of traffic with Satan. Such fears are groundless. Meditation has been
given by God to man for his spiritual profit, not for his spiritual destruction.
I would be failing in a duty to those less fortunate if through fear of being thought a
boaster I failed to state that my researches have led me to the certain discovery of the
soul.
Any man may become an atheist or an agnostic and doubt the existence of his own soul,
but no man need remain one. All that is required of him is that he search for it patiently,
untiringly, and unremittingly. Reality eludes us. Yet because common experience and
mystical experience are both strongly interwoven out of it, they who persevere in their
search may hold the hope that one day they may find it. Men will rush agitatedly hither
and thither in quest of a single possession, but hardly one can be induced to go in quest
of his own soul. Strange as it may seem to those who have immersed themselves
heavily in the body's senses, hard to believe as it may be to those who have lost
themselves deeply in the world's business, there is nevertheless a way up to the soul's
divinity. That the divine power is active here, in London or New York, and now, in the
twentieth century, may startle those who look for it only in Biblical times and in the
Holy Land. But human perceptions in their present stage cannot bring this subtler self
within their range without a special training. Its activity eludes the brain.
Every man who does not feel this close intimate fellowship with his Overself is
necessarily a pilgrim, most probably an unconscious one, but still in everything and
everywhere he is in search of his soul.
The soul is perfectly knowable and experienceable. It is here in men's very hearts and
minds, and such knowledge once gained, such experience once known, lifts them into a
higher estimate of themselves. Men then become not merely thinking animals but
glorious beings. Is it not astonishing that man has ever been attracted and captivated by
something which the intellect can hardly conceive nor the imagination picture,
something which cannot even be truly named? Here is something to ponder over: why
men should have forfeited all that seems dear, to the point of forfeiting life itself, for
something which can never be touched or smelled, seen or heard.
What is it that has turned man's heart towards religion, mysticism, philosophy since
time immemorial? His aspiration towards the diviner life is unconscious testimony to its
existence. It is the presence within him of a divine soul which has inspired this turning,
the divine life itself in his heart which has prompted his aspiration. Man has no escape
from the urge to seek the Sacred, the Profound, the Timeless. The roots of his whole
being are in it.
We are neither the originator of this doctrine nor even its prophet. The first man who
ventured into the unknown within-ness of the Universe and of himself was its originator
whilst every man who has since voiced this discovery has been its prophet. The day will
come when science, waking more fully than it is now from its materialistic sleep, will
confess humbly that the soul of man does really exist.
Men are free to imprison their hearts and minds in soulless materialism or to claim their
liberty in the wider life of spiritual truth. Let them pull aside their mental curtains and
admit the life-giving sunlight of truth.
What could be closer to a man than his own mind? What therefore should be more easy
to examine and understand? Yet the contrary is actually true. He knows only the
surfaces of the mind; its deeps remain unknown.
If the mind is to become conscious of itself, it can do so only by freeing itself from the
ceaseless activity of its thoughts. The systematic exercise of meditation is the deliberate
attempt to achieve this. Just as muddied water clears if the earth in it is left alone to
settle, so the agitated mind clarifies its perceptions if left alone through meditation to
settle quietly. There exists a part of man's nature of which ordinarily he is completely
ignorant, and of whose importance he is usually sceptical.
What is the truest highest purpose of man's life? It is to be taken possession of by his
higher self. His dissatisfactions are incurable by any other remedy. Spinoza saw and
wrote that man's true happiness lay in drawing nearer to the Infinite Being.
Sanatkumara, the Indian Sage, saw and taught, "That which is Infinity is indeed bliss;
there can be no happiness in limited things."
Such is the insecurity of the present-day world that the few who have found security are
only the few who have found their own soul, and inner peace.
2
Three happenings must show themselves: to be given direction, to feel an impulsion
towards it, and to practise purification as a necessary requisite for the journey. Two
warnings are needed here: fall not into the extreme of unbalance, and depend not on
what is outside. One reminder: seek and submit to grace. It may be imageless or found
anywhere anytime and in any form--a work of art, a piece of music, a living tree, or a
human being--for in the end it must come from your own higher individuality and in
your own loneliness.
3
Before embarking on this teaching, he should ask himself: "What attracts me most in
this teaching? What do I hope to get out of it? Am I seeking religious satisfaction or
metaphysical truth or moral power or inner peace or psychic faculties? Will I be
satisfied with a theoretical understanding or would I go so far as to put it into practice?
Am I willing to set aside a half hour daily for the exercise in meditation? How far do I
wish to travel in the Quest of the Overself?"
4
The beginnings of this higher life are always mysterious, always unpredictable,
sometimes intellectually quiet and sometimes emotionally excited.
5
When first he sets the logs of his raft afloat upon these strange waters whose ending can
be only "somewhere in infinity" as the geometricians say, there are no lights to show his
frail vessel the way of travel, no suns or stars to point a path for it. But he knows then
that his head is bowed in homage to a higher power. Later he will know also how utterly
right was the intuition which earlier drove him forth.
6
We walk the Quest uncertainly, human nature being what it is, human weakness
following us so obtrusively as it does.
7
The decision to embark on this quest--so new, uncommon, and untried to the average
Westerner--becomes especially hard to the man seeking alone, with no companion or
relative to fortify his resolution.
8
This urge to discover an intangible reality seems an irrational one to the materialistic
mentality. But, on the contrary, it is the most completely logical, the most sensible of all
the urges that have ever driven a man.
9
The instinct which draws man to the truths of philosophy, the experiences of mysticism,
and the feeling of religion is a sound one.
10
The fact of his own self-existence is the innate primary experience of every man. It is
clear, certain, and incontrovertible. But the nature of that existence is obscure, confused,
and arguable.
11
In each man there is a part of him which is unknown and untouched.
12
So much happens in the subconscious before they are quite aware of it that only when a
new decision, a new orientation of feeling or thought is firmly arrived at, and openly
appears, do they discover and define what they have been led to by outer and inner
developments.
13
It is in the region of consciousness below the normal state that the most powerful forces
move the human being--and can be applied to move him. Here only can the "radical
transformation" which Krishnamurti so often calls for be made.
14
If he believes that these ideas ring true, then his course of duty is plain. To keep aloof in
such a circumstance is to write his name in the Book of Failure.
15
Man has largely conquered his planetary environment. Now he must begin the sterner
task of conquering himself.
16
"Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth" is a sentence from that ancient record, the
Hebrew Bible. But any man may find that the Lord is still existent and still willing to
speak to him even today. But to actualize such an encounter he must take to the secret
path and practise inner listening.
17
In man, Heaven and Earth unite. He is free to enjoy the one or the other. The first leads
to peace of mind, the second ties him to the ego's wheel. Whoever sincerely wants
access to divinity may find it, but he must make the first move.
18
If humanity has not been gifted with divine consciousness by the sages, it is not only
because such a free gift cannot be made. It is also because humanity prefers other things
instead. When a questioner suggested to Buddha that he give Nirvana to everyone,
Buddha sent him to ask at many houses what the people there wanted most. All desired
some material thing or some worldly quality. Nobody desired Nirvana.
19
The fulfilment of the heart's nostalgic yearning for its true homeland may be delayed,
but it cannot be defeated.
20
If he is to moan over the length of the road opening out before him, he should also
jubilate over the fact that he has begun to travel it. How few care to take even that step!
21
If the quest seems too far from one's environment or circumstances, it is still a good
time to start, for the reward will be better savoured.
22
This search after the soul need not wait until death until it successfully ends. To do so
would be illogical and in most cases futile. Here on earth and in this very lifetime the
grand discovery may be made.
23
The quest upon which he has entered will be a long one and the task he has undertaken
a hard one. But the Ideal will also be his support because his conscience will endorse his
choice to the end.
24
"O ye aspirant, leave aside wrangling, and take up the quest leading to the true goal, the
Supreme Overself, which is unique. Sayeth Kabir, listen O aspirant, push thy enquiry
further."--Kabir
25
Is there some particular purpose in my birth here? Is it all mere coincidence? Must we
doubt, deny, even reject God? These are some of the questions a thoughtful man might
ask himself.
26
If experience, reason, or intuition cannot bring him to the conviction that a higher power
rules the world, a master's help, grace, or writing may do so. If that fails, he has no other
recourse than to keep pondering the question until light dawns.
27
If some are immediately and irrevocably captured by the teachings, others are only
gradually and cautiously convinced.
28
Those who feel an emptiness in their hearts despite worldly attainments and possessions
may be unconsciously yearning for the Overself.
29
So many of us place so much value in possessions, yet we overlook the startling fact
that we have not begun to possess ourselves! What man can call his thoughts his own?
30
The conventional measure of a man is his family and fortune, his church affiliation and
political membership. What has all this to do with his essential self?
31
Can we build a bridge between this sorrowful earthly life and the peaceful eternal life?
Are the two forever sundered? Every seer, sage, and saint answers the first question
affirmatively and the second negatively.
32
The echoes of our spiritual being come to us all the time. They come in thoughts and
things, in music and pictures, in emotions and words. If only we would take up the
search for their source and trace them to it, we would recognize in the end the Reality,
Beauty, Truth, and Goodness behind all the familiar manifestations.
33
Those who can no longer confine their thinking within the conventional boundaries of
common experience may cross over into religion's reverent faith, into mysticism's deep-
felt intuition, or into philosophy's final certitude.
34
Whoever perceives the inferiority of his environment to what it could be, as well as the
imperfection of his nature in the light of its undeveloped possibilities, and who sets out
to improve the one and amend the other, has taken a first step to the quest.
35
It is better to come late to the higher life with its nobler values and uplifting practices,
than not at all. It is still better to come to it when one is comparatively young and
foundations are being laid.
36
They will be fortunate indeed if their spiritual longings are satisfied without the passage
of many years and the travail of much exploration. They will be fortunate indeed if
pitying friends do not repeatedly tell them with each change and each disappointed
pulling-up of tents that they are pursuing a mirage.
37
Those who have found their way to this Path leave forever behind them their aimless
wanderings of the past.
38
One fateful day, he will ruefully realize that he is octopus-held by external activities.
Then will he take up the knife of a keen relentless determination and cut the
imprisoning tentacles once and for all.
39
The guiding laws of life are not easy to find. The sacred wisdom of God is also the
secret wisdom.
40
The seeker quests until his thought rests.
41
The quest will continue to attract its votaries so long as the Real continues to exist and
men continue to remain unaware of it.
42
Title: The Temple and the Tomb. (Man, who should be the temple of holiness, is now its
tomb.)
43
The mystery of the soul is as formidable and as baffling as any. Yet it is also a
fascinating one. If few people have penetrated it today, many tried to do so in the past.
44
Only when they are brought by the discipline of experience to a sense of responsibility,
are they likely to seek this knowledge.
45
This does not mean that a spiritual outlook requires an unquestioning acceptance of
what man has made of himself and of the world.
46
We do not approach God through our knees, or through the whole body prostrate on the
ground, but deep in our hearts. We do not feel God with our emotions any more than we
know him with our thoughts. No! --we feel the divine presence in that profound
unearthly stillness where neither the sounds of emotional clamour nor those of
intellectual grinding can enter.(P)
47
Each man who lights this candle within his own mind will soon begin to attract other
men like moths--not all men nor many men but only those who are groping for a way
out of their darkness.
48
Can a scrupulously impartial search through world-thought and experience lead to
discovery of truth?
49
"Wilt thou be made whole?" asked Jesus.
Qualifications
50
Only when this search for a higher life has become an absolute necessity to a man, has
he found even the first qualification needed for the Quest.
51
Modern civilization, with its tensions and comforts, its speed and extroversion, its
pleasure and treasure hunts, its complicated activities and economic necessities, has
trapped its victims so securely that he who would follow an independent path would
have to make excessive efforts. It may seem foolish to suggest a scheme of living which
involves the sacrifice of time separated out from a pressing day and given up to
purposes seldom bothered with by civilized society, whose ways in fact would impede
it. It may seem unlikely that people will follow such a scheme when, even if they
theoretically accept those purposes, they deem themselves too busy or know themselves
too lazy to operate it. It may seem impractical to offer it, especially to those who are
dependent upon their work for a livelihood and who lose so much time getting to and
from it. And even if they or others could be persuaded into adopting it, there is little
likelihood that its exercises would be kept up--for only a comparative few are likely to
have the needed strength and perseverance to keep it up. Where then is the spare time
out of the modern man's daily program and the continuously driving will to come from?
Where are the exceptional persons who would make the requisite sacrifices? No man
will take up such a course of self-improvement and self-development unless he is
thoroughly convinced of its necessity. And even then he may lack the willpower to
declare war against his bad habits, his sloth and complacency, his pessimism and
surface-comfort. He may be unable to change his pattern of thought and life, even if he
wants to.
52
But the impulse towards a higher life must in the end come from something other than
mere escapism or exotic curiosity. It must come from the thirst for truth for its own
sake.
53
Without this ever-burning thirst for spiritual awareness, no seeker is likely to travel far.
54
Those whom life has wounded may turn to spiritual teachings for comfort, but too often
this is only a passing reaction to sufferings. It has its temporary value and place, but it is
not the same as consciously and clearly engaging in the Quest because the thirst for
truth is predominant.
55
A passionate eagerness to find the Overself is a necessary basis for all the other
qualifications in its pursuit.
56
If the quest is only an emotional whim or an intellectual fad for a man, he will make
little headway with it. If on the contrary it is something on which his deepest happiness
depends and he is ready to give what it demands from every candidate, if he is resolved
to go ahead and never desert it, he will possess a fair chance of going far.
57
He needs to have the willingness and preparedness to withdraw every day from his
worldly and intellectual life utterly, and then to have the humility to open his heart in
fervent supplication and loving adoration of the higher power.
58
It is an age-old requirement of the higher self that those who seek its favours shall be
ready and willing to empty their hearts of all other affections if called upon to do so.
Prophets like Jesus and seers like Buddha told us this long ago, and there is nothing that
modern inventive genius can do to alter the requirement.
59
To search for truth in its full integrity, putting aside all the pitiful substitutes which
content little, less honest minds, requires not only an independence that creates
intellectual if not personal loneliness, but also a willingness to abandon egoism and
surrender its worldly advantages.
60
The qualifications required from him are love of the highest, desire for truth, conformity
of living to the divine laws, and balance in his own person.
61
The seeker who has a strong yearning for Truth and who has a sense of correct values
already possesses some of the indispensable qualifications for this path, and should go
far upon it. However, the will to continue despite all obstacles, together with a special
kind of patience, is also essential--particularly in the earlier stages.
62
He must begin his quest with an attitude of deep veneration for something, some power,
higher than himself.
63
A mighty longing for liberation from one's present condition is a prerequisite for the
philosophic quest.
64
The ardent desire to establish his true identity needs to be present also.
65
To obtain something they greatly desire, men will arouse their will and apply it strongly.
Only when sufficient experience of life matures them sufficiently are they likely to
arouse and apply this same will to the Quest itself.
66
This is not a teaching for a little circle of mystical cranks but for more evolved people,
that is, for those who are finer in character, more sensitive and intelligent in mind than
the masses. It is for people to whom the mind's experiences are not less but even more
important than the body's.
67
The Quest will be taken up and taken seriously only by those who have come to see that
they must henceforth live as human beings and not merely as animals, if life is to be
honourable and their own self-respect retained.
68
Most students of this teaching are not highly intellectual. If they had been, the pride and
arrogance of intellect would, in most cases, have stopped them from entering such a
mystical field. But neither are they unintelligent. They are sensible, mature, and
discriminating enough to appreciate the value of its balanced ideal.
69
We must bring to the Quest not only all these delicate intuitions and subtle metaphysical
concepts, but also a practical common sense and a sturdy, robust reason.
70
A would-be follower of this path need not be concerned if he lacks intellect and has had
an imperfect education. He should accept what he can understand of the books he
studies and leave the rest for some future time. What is needed much more than intellect
is humility, intuition, and intelligence, which many intellectuals do not possess.
71
People are needed with intellectual acumen, with emotional control, with balanced
reason, with loyalty to ideals and with sincerity and faithfulness in working for them.
They are to be undeterred by criticism and unmoved by praise. And lastly, amid the
arduous struggles of this quest, its soaring thoughts and serious comprehension of
world-sorrows, a sense of humour is needed also.
72
Those who care enough for advanced ideas to seek them out in spite of social rebuffs, as
well as those who have the courage to explore what lies beyond already accepted ones,
have become a marked proportion of questers.
73
Everyone expects to witness scientific advance made in these modern times but only a
few have the mental courage to expect spiritual advance, let alone seek it.
74
It is for those who are ready for the phase of intellectual independence and spiritual
individualism, who are courageous enough to face the inner solitariness of the human
spirit when it turns from doing to being.
75
That man is excellently qualified for philosophy who has a strong spirit for service, who
is well-balanced emotionally, and who is well-equipped intellectually.
76
The Quest calls for men of the world who are not worldly, aspirants with clear minds,
endowed with common sense, students who will strive to lift themselves from inner
mediocrity to inner superiority, followers who will strive to make worthwhile
contributions to their environment.
77
If the faculties of mind and the qualities of character which the successful man of affairs
already possesses were to be transferred to the field of understanding and mastering life
itself, he could quickly progress in it.
78
It is not for futile dreamers nor neurotics seeking some guru's shoulders to lean on for
the remainder of their years. There exist plenty of cults willing or eager to serve them. It
is for those who understand there is real work to be done by, on, for, and within
themselves.
79
Is he sincerely desirous of receiving truth (rather than comfort for his illusions and
confirmation for his beliefs) from the Overself? Is he earnestly willing to obey its
leading?
80
It is a mark of the quester that he is utterly sincere in seeking truth, and that he has some
depth, enough not to be content with shallow presentations of it.
81
Authenticity of being is a necessary requirement in a would-be disciple. The insincere
had better stay away from the quest.
82
If he is as determined as he is sincere, as unselfish as self-disciplined, as sensitive as
intuitive, he may expect to go far on the quest.
83
In humility the quest is to be begun: in even greater humility it is to be fulfilled.
84
Until he has become conscious of his shortcomings, his ignorance, and his sinfulness, a
man will rest in smug complacency and receive no spur to self-improvement, no
impetus to enter the quest. Humility is another name for such consciousness. Hence, its
importance is such as to be rated the first of a disciple's qualifications.
85
It is not for the average man but only for the exceptional man--for the one who is
determined to pursue the meaning of life to the uttermost.
86
When these words awaken profound echoes in a man's soul, he shows thereby that the
intuitive element is sufficiently alive to enable him to profit by further teaching.
87
In every kind of situation he will remember that he is dedicated to this quest, will
remember its ideals and disciplines, yet not forget that he is still a human being.
88
They are welcome who are willing to equip themselves with proper and profounder
knowledge, who wish to fit themselves by study of fundamental principles, by regular
meditation, personal self-discipline, and public service for a higher life for themselves
and a valuable one for society.
89
The mass of people are apathetic toward the quest: the poor for one set of reasons, the
rich for another. Only the few capable of individual judgement, the defiant and
independent thinkers, will be capable of rising up out of the mass.
90
Moral strength is needed by the quester.
91
This path requires something more than a search for righteousness or peace. It requires
the aspirant to make himself more sensitive to the sorrows and struggles of mankind,
ignorance-born and karmically earned though they may be, to imbue himself with a
wise, prudent, and balanced compassion. He must advance from an outwardly-
compulsive goodness to an inwardly-natural goodness. Such a way of life, with its
chained desires, holy communion, and sensitive compassion, gives any man a higher
stature.
92
It is easy to fall into a gloomy pessimism and say that the spiritual life is not for him,
that he is unfit to practise its arduous exercises and that he had better abandon what is
manifestly only for those blessed with luck or genius. Yet he would be wrong to assume
that because the path is not easy he is mistaken in aspiring to it. Because it is not just a
matter of daydreaming, nor passing from one thrilling inner experience to another,
because hard work and unflagging perseverance are demanded from him, there is still
no need to despair.
93
He will need much courage for the Quest because he will be confronted by two
powerful enemies. One is himself, the other is society. Within himself he will have to do
battle against the great desires. Within society he will have to contend against the great
traditions.
94
He can successfully overcome the magnitude of his task if only he possess faith in
himself, courage in his vision, and the resolve to shape his life for its higher welfare.
95
If the impulse to embark on this quest is to be something more than an unstable fancy, a
calm perception of its stubborn difficulties and a most especially frank recognition of its
self-refusing demands, is needed. That man is mistaken who comes to the quest
expecting its rewards without its pains, its peace without its emotional crucifixions, its
strength without its bodily mortifications.
96
If the quest seems to demand too much from us, that depends on what we ourself
demand from life. The statement is true only if we ask for little, but false if we ask for
much.
97
The quest is unattractive to sinners and unnecessary to saints. It is for those who are not
wholly indifferent to worldly desires nor yet too strongly attached to them.
98
The quest is to be neither an emotional fancy nor an intellectual whim; it has to become
something steady, deep-rooted, and strong-sapped in a man's life.
99
He will possess an irrefragable faith in the power of truth, holding that even if it were
crushed and obliterated today time will cause it to rise again tomorrow and give it a
fresh voice.
100
Whoever comes to this quest is unlikely to stay long with its pursuit unless he comes
with considerable devotion and correct evaluation of its spiritual importance.
101
When a man starts on this quest, what work he has called himself to! What discipline of
the feelings, what meditation of the intuiting faculty, what study of the thinking faculty,
and what sacrifice of the ego must now be undergone at the bidding of no other voice
than his own!
102
Those who are willing to take themselves in hand, ready to trample on their lower
natures, are alone fit for this quest. They are few. The others, who come to it for its
sensational, dramatic, psychical, and occult possibilities, hover around the entrance, but
never get on the path itself.
103
The quest is neither for outright saints nor for outright sinners. It is for those who are
conscious of having animal passions and human weaknesses, but who are struggling
against them and striving for self-mastery.
104
Just as sickness creates appreciation of the value of good health, so life's anxieties create
appreciation of inner peace. But this peace cannot be had without a measure of self-
control and self-reform, which calls for use of the will.
105
Those who are satisfied with centering themselves within the ego will not be drawn to
such teachings, which educate the pupils to cultivate constantly a withdrawal from the
ego.
106
You have launched upon a quest from which there is no turning back. You have
embarked upon a journey which will demand from you the utmost patience and deepest
faith, the strongest determination and cultivation of the keenest intelligence lying latent
within you.
107
This Quest is not an undertaking of a few weeks or months. It is, as I have often said, a
lifetime's work: patience is required from us and must be given by us.
108
Yes, you may discover the elusive secret of life--but you must first work for it. "The
gods sell anything to everybody," announces Emerson, "at a fair price." Take a few
minutes off each day to find yourself, to question yourself, to awaken yourself--that is
part of the price demanded.
109
Time and growth are needed before a man can sign that absolute commitment of mind
and life for which it asks.
110
Spoiled plans or disappointed hopes may turn a man toward this quest but only
appreciation of peace or love of truth can keep him on it.
111
Only such a strong yearning for, and loyalty to, peace or strength or wisdom or truth can
carry him through the difficulties and past the obstructions on his path.
112
It has been the best minds, the noblest hearts of the human race which, historically, have
enthusiastically given themselves to this quest. For they, with their superior sense of
values, could best appreciate its high significance.
113
Only those men who know the value of the Truth are likely to furnish the candidates to
search for it, and only those who search for it are likely to produce the few who find it.
114
The mere movement of his body from place to place in the name of adventure will no
longer suffice to satisfy him. The only adventure he now seeks is that which will bring
him to the wisdom of higher men and to the blessing of inspired ones.
115
Out of his own free choice and his own initiative, the human being has to respond to
this divine presence hidden in his mind and even body, has to grow and ripen inwardly
as he has already done physically. Here, in this point, he departs from animal existence.
116
He is already on the way to being something more than an animal which has lost some
talents or senses and gained some talents or faculties who stops to ponder a single
question: what is the source of his consciousness?
117
He may ask himself whether he has any competence for such a great task. But this is to
forget that he has been led to this point, to the quest, that the same higher self or power
which out of its grace did this can lead him still farther.
118
He who wants to co-operate with the World-Idea, which is inherent in all things, all
beings, all the universe, to live in harmony with it and with his fellow-creatures, will be
attracted to this quest sooner or later.
119
Useless would it be to thrust these truths on unprepared people and to get them to take
up a way of spiritual growth unsuited to their taste and temperament. Persuasion should
arise of its own accord through inner attraction.
120
Only when his quest becomes a whole-heartedly single-minded enterprise, working for
a solitary end, disregarding all else yet retaining the sense of balance is it likely to
succeed.
121
No vow of secrecy will be required of him, no pledge of loyalty demanded from him; he
must enter the scattered formless order by a silent act of his whole heart, not by a vocal
utterance of his fleshly lips.
122
Is it too presumptuous for an ordinary man to attempt to follow the philosophic path?
We answer that no man who feels the need of truth to support or guide his life should be
regarded as presumptuous in this matter. He need not be discouraged. He may dabble or
penetrate deeply. The path is for him also. But it is so only to the extent that he is
willing to pay the cost--no more. He is free to pay as little, and get as little, as he
wishes. No one has the right to force him to give more.
123
Men find truth only to the degree that they are entitled to do so. Their aspiration is not
enough by itself to determine this degree; their mental, moral, and intuitional equipment
also determines it.
124
Whether he is able to follow regular periods of meditation or not, he may still have the
basic essential for spiritual advancement. This is the fundamental mood of aspiration, a
strong yearning to gain the consciousness of his innermost being.
125
The traveller on this quest is a man who uses his consciousness and his will to better his
character and purify his heart.
126
The aspirant who comes to the Quest out of pure disinterested love for it rather than out
of a hunger for occult powers or a thirst for occult experiences, who is seeking to know
and do the right thing, will go ahead much more quickly and encounter much fewer
dangers than the others who are not.
127
He cannot even set foot on this path if he has not become convinced of his weakness
and wickedness. For only then will he be really rather than vocally willing to desert the
ego.
128
There are not many who are ready for such independence of attitude and life. A certain
inner strength is necessary for it first of all, and of course a natural or acquired
willingness to desert the herds if necessary.
129
When a man is ready to confess his ignorance, he is ready to begin his study of
philosophy. When a man is ready to drop the distorting influence of the emotions and
passions which actuate him, he is ready to begin the study of philosophy.
130
He who knows that he has been ignorant of truth, and still is, has begun to enter the
knowledge of truth.
131
This is not for those who are so satisfied with themselves that they want to preserve
their egos just as they are. It is for those who feel the need of self-improvement, and feel
it so keenly that they are willing to work hard for this objective and to take time for it.
The Quest is for those who have looked at their own faults and turned their head away
from the unattractive and disconcerting sight with downcast eyes. But although their
weaknesses have clung in the past to them like limpets, philosophy bids them take hope
and take to the Quest which can liberate and strengthen them in the future.
132
Those who have had their fill of society, who have found its gaiety and its friendship to
be all on the surface, who have evaluated it as bogus, sham, and unreal, may be
prepared to listen more heedfully to the description of a life that is offered as being
much more worthwhile.
133
In man's higher yearnings, in his wishes for a better holier calmer self, he shows
evidences of intuition.
134
To believe that this quest is only for religious people, or for impractical dreamers, and
not for reasonable people or for men active in the world is to believe something that is
untrue.
135
The laity, the masses, are entitled to be told that a higher truth exists, that they can come
to it when they can cope with it, that it is up to them to equip themselves with the
needed qualifications.
136
Just because most people appear to have superficial interests and are not yet ready for
the deeper thoughts of philosophy does not necessarily mean that they are not making
spiritual progress. On the contrary, they may be doing very well on their own particular
levels of development. It will simply be necessary for them to incarnate many more
times before they are capable of understanding the more advanced truths.
137
Aspirants come from the low, the middle, and the high strata of life--with most probably
from the middle.
138
No age is unsuited to the study and practice of philosophy. No one is too young to begin
it, nor too late.
139
Although the middle-aged and elderly, being more experienced, are more receptive to
the ideas of emotional control and personal detachment, philosophy is not necessarily a
subject fit only for those in their sunset years.
140
Men who are seized by ambition, who want money, prestige, honours, power, will not
welcome the idea of detachment, and they are right. For they are not yet ready for it:
they need to gain the fruits of their desires, to experience the strivings and
accomplishments from which the truth about them can be deduced. Only after the
lessons have been learned can they be in a position to reflect properly and impartially
upon this idea and appreciate its worth.
141
He who is afraid to touch this study because he is afraid of spoiling his worldly career is
unfit for it. Nevertheless, it is an error to believe that those who shed such a fear are
called upon to forget their tasks or shirk their responsibilities and duties in this world.
They are not. If they become indoctrinated with the ideas here taught, they can succeed
in their tasks and duties; they need not fail.
142
Those who live in a private realm of far-fetched phantasies which are caricatures of the
real facts, as well as those who betray all the signs of neuroticism, hysteria, or
psychopathy, often talk overmuch about the quest but do not seem able to apply its most
elementary injunctions. To encourage them to follow it is only still further to build up
their ridiculous egoism and bolster their fool's paradise. For them the quest is
unachievable until they become different persons.
143
The unequal balance of the whole psyche is a characteristic of those seekers who
impatiently shun the philosophic discipline. Hence we find that emotional neuroticism,
intellectual disorder, volitional weakness, and egotistical excess are strongly marked in
a number of people who take a fussy, shrieking interest in mysticism. They seek
ardently for teachers but not for truth, for personalities rather than principles. They
surrender themselves eagerly to visible organizations but not to the invisible Overself. It
does not occur to them that the absence of proper qualifications unfits them for personal
discipleship under a competent master. For anyone to express even a hint of this
unfitness is to arouse their anger, provoke their hostility, and stiffen their conceit. And if
he goes on to suggest, in however kindly and constructive a manner, that their energies
would be more profitably directed towards self-improvement than towards running after
incompetent teachers and absurd sects, he is rewarded by abuse and vilification.
144
Neither a dry pedantic intellectualism nor a sloppy excitable emotionalism is desirable
in the seeker after truth.
145
It is not for irresponsible persons, those of feeble will or hysterical nerves.
146
It is wrong to look upon this quest as one for semi-lunatics, emotionally disturbed
persons, or gullible, brainless miracle-hunters. It is not a place for the deposit of
sicknesses, troubles, and deficiencies. Such things must be taken elsewhere for repair.
147
All too many people take to this quest who are not really ready for it, who need to
become human beings before seeking the more massive achievement of becoming
superhuman ones, who ought to attain personal decency, balance, discipline,
practicality, and calmness before losing themselves in the theoretical flights of
metaphysical doctrines like Vedanta.
148
Truth is discoverable but not by everyone. It is not discoverable by the criminals who
break every ethical law, by the lazy who won't pause and look within each day, by the
cynics who sneer at the quality of reverence, by those who do not value it enough to
cultivate their true intelligence.
149
Does everyone have the right to know this truth? Yes and no. Yes--because all men must
do so in the end as a part of the fulfilment of life's purpose. No--when they are as yet
uninterested in it and unable or unwilling to receive it.
150
If our thought is to be straight and fearless we ought to fling all prejudices overboard at
the very start of our voyage.
151
The prejudiced man wants his prejudices confirmed not contradicted. He is not really
looking for truth. Before the quest can even begin, prejudices must be removed. This is
a psychological operation which the man cannot perform upon himself, except in part,
without a great effort.
152
The fool cannot follow this Quest. He may try to but he will be sent back to learn some
wisdom through earthly lessons and through earthly difficulties brought on by his
foolishness.
153
Flighty temperaments, which seek the latest novelty rather than the first truth, are unfit
for philosophy.
154
The very name "Quest" implies movement, travelling, journey; those who remain
stationary cannot be said to be on the "Quest." By this I do not mean those who find
themselves stagnating against their will, but those who make no effort inwardly to
advance.
155
The truth is sometimes so spiky and so uncomfortable that people hide from it. Entry on
the quest is a sign that enough courage has been gathered to face it. Those who assert
that they are questers but who are too much in love with their own fancies are incapable
of facing the realities behind those fancies. To this extent their quest is a bogus one,
although not usually a consciously bogus one.
156
Emerson: "People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope
for them!"
157
No factory can manufacture divine peace for us, nor can any workshop turn out the
inspirations which bestow heroism on a man. We may wander the whole length of
Oxford Street and find no shop which can sell us a packet of starry truths that might
comfort and console. The morning post will bring a hundred letters in the office mail,
but it will not bring one word or hint that shall conduct us nearer the higher aims.
3. Independent Path
o General description
o Take truth where you find it
o Intelligent nonconformity
o Pros & cons of independence
o Requirements
o Is monastic discipline needed?
o Independence and teachers
o Loneliness
3 - Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 3: Independent Path
Independent Path
General description
1
What am I? is such an ancient and perennial question only because it has to be answered
by each individual for himself. If he finds the true answer, he will find also that he
cannot really transfer it to another person but only its idea, its mental shadow. That too
may be valuable to others, but it is not the same.
2
Surely the human race has by this time, by this late century in history found the truth?
Why, then, does the man who wants it have to make his own personal search all over
again? It is because he must know it for himself within himself.
3
It was Ramana Maharshi of Arunachala who said, "You yourself are your own guru. Be
that."
4
He who seeks the truth about these matters will discover that it is contrary to current
opinion, and therefore he will have to discover it by himself and for himself.
5
He should verify the truth not by reference to book or bible but by reference to his own
private experience.
6
There is no room in this school for those who are ready to dispose of life's problems
with secondhand judgement. The need of individual thinking is vital here.
7
Humanity will not be saved in groups or by organizations. It will be saved individual by
individual.
8
The Quest begins with, and ends in, himself.
9
Being true to oneself brings happiness. Being indifferent to the criticisms of those who
misunderstand brings freedom from anxiety on their account. Walking the streets in a
spirit of independence, enables us to walk as a millionaire! Let others sacrifice
themselves to snobbery, if they will; let us be free. Only when the feet rest can we bring
the mind to rest--unless we are Attained Ones!
10
We can be devout and dignified but we need not therefore be dull. I do not deny that the
drift of several movements which are in the world's eye today, is toward this idea of
greater spirituality. But whereas they are confined in their search by attachment to a set
creed, or a particular philosophy, or even some one person, we propose to pursue an
absolutely independent quest--one limited in its width by no qualifications or
conditions.
11
The individual need to escape from rigid formalism into intellectual freedom comes
only to a minority. But it is from this minority that the real truth-seekers emerge.
12
Taking no theoretical position, not committed to any beliefs, not wearing any labels, not
putting himself in any categories, the philosophical student starts his search for truth in
intellectual freedom and ends it in personal inner freedom. He is then what he is.
13
The independent self-reliant attitude of Saint Paul set an example which, had it been
followed by succeeding generations, might have changed the history of his religion. He
refused money gifts and followed his craft of tent-making throughout his wide travels.
14
To become a follower of this quest there is no master or organization whose permission
he must ask: he is free to do so just so far as his aspiration and capacity permit him to.
15
Without making any fuss and avoiding unnecessary friction, he may pursue his
independent path and choose his own goals.
16
If a man cannot find in society or surroundings the standards which suit his character,
then he must find his own. It is this that makes him a quester.
17
A man must stay in his own orbit and take his directives from within. If through fear of
loneliness, intimidation, or suggestion, he joins the marching groups of his time, he will
not reach his best.
18
Christianity, as it has become in its organized and institutionalized state, presents the
good citizen as its model. Taoism, as it originally was, presented quite the opposite
nonconforming citizen as its own model. So long as society is itself ignorant of where it
is going wrong in its appraisal of the nature of man and mesmerized by institutional
prestige while neglectful of inner light, so long ought its demand for conformity to be
treated with cold reserve, asserted the Taoist sages.
19
So long as so many men live in error or compromise with wrong, merely because both
have been established by tradition or custom, so long must a few among them do the
greater and nobler thing by following a bold nonconformity.
20
Has he refused to submit to his own ego only to submit to society's? Shall he conform to
the world and its ways out of fear of the world's opinion of him? Is he to have courage
enough to reject his neighbour's religious ideas but not to resist his neighbour's foolish
habits?
21
The average, the "normal," is not to be taken as the true standard.
22
He must walk at his own pace, not society's hasty trot. He must choose his own road,
not the most trodden one. The way of life which his neighbours follow does not suit
him, so he must alter it. He holds the desire to fashion himself creatively into something
better than he is at present, something nobler, wiser, and more perceptive. But they hold
no such desire, are content with static existence.
23
He must be willing and even determined to think and feel differently from those around
him. How can it be otherwise when his goal is different from theirs, too?
24
So far as conformity connotes pretense and insincerity and timid blind imitation, he is
not one to favour it; but so far as it connotes decency in behaviour, consideration for
others, and experience-tested proven standards, he is for it.
25
So far as a convention is reasonable and helpful, he will respect it, but when it becomes
a hollow formality or stuffy pomposity, he will not.
26
He must accept the fact that he is not, and does not want to be, like the majority of
people.
27
The superior person always has a choice facing him: is he to live in the way others live
in order to please them or is he to live in the way his own standards call for? If he lets
them pull him down he loses what has taken him many, many years to develop.
Somewhere at some point he must take his stand, must plant his feet and refuse to budge
any farther.
28
The ideal world will be one in which the seeker can live without becoming worldly,
where he can fulfil his social obligations without becoming a slave to social
conventions.
29
The philosopher's brave defiance of stuffy herd thought has a positive spirit behind it
and not a negative one.
30
When a man falls away from the false standards set by materialism, he falls into conflict
with the crippling conventions of his time.
31
Whatever peculiarity he may have shown in the past he need not look like that today,
need not wear bizarre dress or assume theatrical postures. His dress may be ordinary
and inconspicuous, his behaviour normal, his demeanour simple. But one thing he may
do and that is cultivate some individuality in his attitude toward life.
32
Most men live as prisoners of ideas which are not even their own but which have been
suggested to them by other men. Independent thinking is rare.
33
Consciously or unwittingly, most of us are suggestible. We accept the thoughts which
other persons want to put into our heads. And we do so to such an extent that we live
vicariously: we do not really live our own lives. This is quite fitting and proper to the
childhood and adolescent years, but how can it be worthy of the adult ones?
34
Where is the man who has his own self, and not one made for him by others? Heredity
and environment, society and suggestion, convention and education heavily contribute
to forming an "I" that is not his own "I," to making a pseudo-individual that is not
himself but passes for it.
35
As he goes deeper and deeper into himself, his private acts become more and more
independent of other people's suggestions and resistant to their influence.
36
The longer I live the more I am impressed, to the point even of awe, by the tremendous
power of suggestion on the human mind. Where is the person who is able to cultivate
his own intelligence without being conditioned by ideas and examples put into it by his
environment or by his reading, by his religion or his family, by his social tradition, or by
the personal fears and desires connected with others? It is others, whether of the long-
dead past or of the living present who partly or wholly imprison him in their thoughts
and imaginations, their conflicts.
37
An inner life not entirely directed by or dependent on another person is an adult one. No
one is such who has to seek another's approval of his actions or shrinks from
disapproval of them.
38
We do not have to accept all the burdens which others try to put upon our shoulders. We
are free to choose and to be sure that we are not merely surrendering our own ego to the
other person's.
39
Of what use is it to ask or accept the opinions of those who are inexpert in this subject
because they have yet to study it thoroughly?
40
A truth which is born out of personal knowledge, or hammered out of personal
experience, has more value for a man than other people's hearsay.
41
Whatever form his outer life may have to take under the pressure of destiny, he will
keep his inner life inviolate.
42
He makes his own world-view rather than inherits it with his body, that is, he thinks for
himself, without inherited bias and prejudice.
43
It is the individual who refuses to be cast in a mold who brings inspiration, inner contact
with the divine, not the institution.
44
There are a few who rise above the crowd to this level by their own self-ennoblement
and self-interiorization.
45
The philosopher is not discouraged because the number of those who adopt
philosophical ideas is so small. He is not seeking the success of a movement, group,
program, or sect. Even if he were the only man who held these ideas he would still not
be discouraged. For he knows that he has not been put in the world to reform it but to
reform himself.
46
It is not necessarily an unstable mind which pushes him from guru to guru, or from
belief to belief, or from group to group. It may be that he is really seeking the one Truth
and has not by his own standards found it in any of these yet.{
47
It is sometimes beneficial to throw away the manuals of spirituality, the textbooks of
holiness!
48
The seeker must be distinctive and not accept conventional views or orthodox religious
notions. He must judge all problems from the philosophic standpoint for he should not
believe any other will yield true conclusions. This standpoint has the eminent
perspective which alone can afford a true estimate of what is involved in these
problems.
49
We turn away from a teaching which does not satisfy our inmost spirit, which leaves our
deepest thirst unslaked.
50
In this matter our wisest course is to follow the scientist's example and test the truth of
these theories, either by ourselves carrying out experiments or by observing the
experiences of other people.
51
One may complain about a sense of depression which comes to his mind after meeting
with certain people. He should reduce such meetings to the least number possible, and
where it is necessary to deal with them, to do so by correspondence as much as he can.
It does not matter that such people may have spiritual interests and may also be on the
Quest. The Quest is an individual matter; it is not a group Quest. One finds God by
oneself, alone in the privacy of his heart and life, not with the help of a group nor in
public associations.
52
Be yourself, your own divine self. Why play a part? Why be an echo? Why follow the
world in its pursuit of the trivial, the stupid, the pain-bringing?>
53
He should not permit himself to be re-entangled by others in past contacts which have
outserved their purpose and which now will only keep him down.
54
This freedom to search for and find truth as well as to select one's own path of approach
toward it, is a precious prerogative.
55
He refuses to accept a label; he feels himself to be outside all the common categories.
56
The divergence of opinion among leading individuals on every subject is extraordinary
and emphasizes once again the necessity of thinking for oneself.
57
Remember that custom and habit are the great tyrants who enslave the mass of mankind.
Real freedom is possible only when one is true to one's own self. Do not permit yourself
to be hypnotized by the common indifference to these high matters, but be loyal to the
promptings of the spirit.
58
With this decree he runs up his personal declaration of independence. No school can
hold him. His loyalty is henceforth given to global thought. Nor is this all.
59
The mystic life depends on no institution, no tradition, no sectarianism. It is an
independent and individual existence.
60
Without falling into the vacuity of scepticism, the intelligent and independent seeker
shuns dogmatic sectarian intellectual or emotional positions. But his openness of mind,
his semi-detached stand, do not prevent his forming favourable appreciations or
accommodating unflattering impressions.
61
It is only as he gets released from all the self-pictured, self-made, much-limited
imaginations provided for him by ignorant but well-meaning men that he can begin to
let in the grace-bestowed new understanding of the Overself.
62
As a man walks through life keeping a secret loyalty to his inner spiritual self, he is
likely to make a few friends among those who are keen-sighted enough to perceive this
loyalty, and a few enemies among others who misconstrue his actions and
misunderstand his motives. And because he firmly believes in complete payment for all
deeds by the Higher Powers set over mankind, he will remain indifferent without
resentment and without hatred to the latter, while silently returning a benign love to his
friends.
63
Mysticism is not concerned with those who depend on traditional forms of worship and
current religious creeds for the satisfaction of all their inner needs. It is not for them and
could do nothing for them. But those to whom such dependence is merely incidental or
mostly provisional may find further nutriment in mystical teachings and practices.
64
Spiritual pride can take different forms. One of them is a studied intellectual
independence, a refusal to be committed, the maintenance of a so-called open mind
which never comes to a decision. Any good thing overdone becomes a bad thing and
although independent judgement and thinking for oneself is necessary, if pushed to an
extreme it merges into mere pride--egoistic pride.
65
Let others follow whatever path attracts them, but do not let them impose their path
upon you if you do not feel any affinity with it.
66
The person, young or old, who has his mind set on higher things than pleasures of the
moment and is willing to sacrifice a fragment of time, attention, and interest to such
studies and such meditations, will find his refusal to conform to other people's ways is
repaid in inner growth on the quest.
67
Attainment of sanctity must not be bought at the price of relinquishment of sanity.
68
No longer is he willing to accede to the world's demand for his loyalty, for his
conformity, for his surrender. He is recovering his own individual identity and is
determined to keep it.
69
The Real Self dwells above time and space, matter and form, inviolable in its perfect
liberty. If that be the goal and ideal state, he must sooner or later make a beginning to
come into closer relations to it and to grow by the radiance of its Light. Therefore he
does no wrong in standing aloof from the confinements of discipleship to one particular
man, and the restrictions of membership in one organized group.
70
If men would learn to accept the authority of the Voice of Inspiration whenever and
wherever it spoke to them, they would not need to cramp and confine themselves within
the narrowing walls of any sect or section, any cult or organization.
71
It is to the Overself that he must give his ultimate allegiance.
72
If his mind is filled with other people's teachings, it may give no attention to his own
Overself's teachings, leadings, and intuitions.
73
There is a teaching principle in every man which can provide him with whatever
spiritual knowledge he needs. But he must first take suitable measures to evoke it. These
include cleansing of body and mind, aspiration of feeling and thought, silencing of
intellect and ego.
74
As an expression of the divine life-power, he is unique. In the end, he will always have
to take his guidance from within, that is to say, direct from that life-power which has
made him what he is.
75
The independent seeker, uncommitted to any cult, may be a sheep without a fold but he
is not necessarily without a shepherd. The inner voice can guide and care for him no
less than a man in the flesh.
76
Those bewildered by the doctrinal differences between the established or traditional
creeds, theologies, liturgies, and customs, yet still seeking some mental satisfaction,
finding similar differences between the religious heresies, the non-established or
modern cults, have a way out of their problem. This is to apply themselves to direct
personal practices which can give them their own experience, their own teaching, from
within. These standard practices include self-purification and meditation. For this inner
work they do not have to join any group or organization, do not have to search for,
follow, or cling to any guide. The god within them becomes, with faith, patience,
persistence, and practice, the light on their path.
77
If he finds the same tenet in ten different religious creeds or metaphysical codes he is
glad to get their repeated confirmation. But in the end he must get it for himself from
within his own self--the Overself. It is the firmest base of life.
78
Although it is quite true that each quester must travel the path for himself, must move
on his own two feet, this does not mean that he is travelling completely alone, or on his
own. If he has no personal guide to accompany him, the Higher Self is still there, within
him, pulling, drawing, leading, or pointing, if only he can learn how to recognize it.
79
He wants to be faithful to "the Glowing Light" within, as it has been called by Far
Eastern mystics, not subjected to or obstructed by an outside authoritarianism.
80
If the Infinite Power is everywhere present, it can surely make itself known to its ardent
seeker in any place, even though that place be bereft of masters.
81
He is original in the true sense of the word: he does not have to copy others, only to
express his own individuality, mostly his higher individuality. He takes care to remain
what he is or in Shakespeare's words to be true to himself, his higher self.
82
Insofar as he lets his happiness depend on another person and loses his independence,
he becomes weakened. Even if the other gives him knowledge or love or support, he
should still not cease to look within as deeply as he can for the idyllic Peace.
83
In the end a man must come to himself, his diviner self, his essential being. And where
shall he look for it if not there where Jesus pointed, within? --not outside, not to some
other man, however high his repute as guru, not to some book, however sacrosanct its
scriptural authority. Both man and book must, if loyal to the highest, also direct him
inward.
84
The Kingdom is within you, not somewhere else, not in an ashram, not even at the feet
of a guru: Jesus' declaration is literally accurate.
85
The writer suggests that the individual seeker should take his own soul--his higher self--
as his guide. By prayer and meditation, he may attain glimpses of it occasionally and
receive the needed guidance. This is safer than tying himself to any institution or a so-
called master. If he can put as much faith in the existence and power of his soul as most
seekers put into their blind following of these masters, his efforts should prove
sufficiently effective. (In this connection, the reader should read the last two pages of
the first section of Chapter 15 in my book, The Wisdom of the Overself.)
86
Just as Emerson returned disappointed from his European search for a master, so
George Fox returned from his British search. But just as Emerson came to understand
that he would have therefore to find a higher self-reliance, so did Fox. "Then the Lord
did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition,
namely, that I might give Him all the glory," he wrote in his diary.
87
We regard Ralph Waldo Emerson as the perfect example of spiritual independence. He
seems beholden to no man and draws all his light from within. How did he arrive at this
condition? For in his early thirties, he wrote to his Aunt Mary, "A teacher . . . when will
God send me one full of truth and of boundless benevolence?" This question was
written soon after he came to Europe. There were four literary heroes across the Atlantic
among whom he hoped to find his teacher. They were Carlyle, Landor, Coleridge, and
Wordsworth. But when he met them in the flesh, Landor severely disappointed him. The
Coleridge visit was "of no use beyond the satisfaction of my curiosity." Emerson's
interview with Wordsworth was more successful but still so fruitless that he was glad to
end it. The first glance at Carlyle made him believe that his search for a teacher was
over, that here was his man. The actuality was that he found a lifelong friend, even a
fellow-pilgrim and seeker. But he did not become a pupil. He had gone in search of a
master. He failed to find one. Indeed he tells his aunt as much, that he seeks a man who
is wise and true but that he never gets used to men. "They always awaken expectations
in me which they always disappoint." He left Europe, writing in his journal on
shipboard the melancholy after-reflection, "I shall judge more justly, less timidly, of
wise men forevermore." And it was there, in his little cabin, that he received the
illumination which he could not find in Europe. He need look outside himself no more.
Out of his illumination, whilst still afloat on the ocean, he wrote down such sentences as
these: "A man contains all that is needful within himself." "Nothing can be given to him
or taken away from him but always there is a compensation." "The purpose of life
seems to be to acquaint a man with himself."
88
His attraction toward this or that teacher may weaken and die but his attraction to the
Inspirer of all teachers, the Overself, will keep on growing stronger in him.
89
He alone must answer this question, and he can best answer it by listening for and
obeying that deep inner feeling which is called intuition.
90
The rarity of competent teachers in the world, and especially in the Western world,
forces seekers to practise self-reliance and cultivate independence, unless they are
willing to accept substitutes for competence or join organizations making
unsubstantiated claims. The Overself will not neglect determined seekers and through
circumstances, events, books, or otherwise gives them the particular guidance or
instruction needed at a particular time.
91
The aspirant of today who is thoroughly discriminating will generally fail to find the
support of a competent teacher. Usually he will have to depend on the inner Self alone.
92
He need not accept any human leadership if he will listen to the voice of the Silence and
accept its invisible leadership.
93
What he learns from outside himself, from teacher or tradition, will never lead to his
true fulfilment until he joins it with what he learns in the stillness from inside himself.
94
People tie themselves to some one man, living or dead, and worship him. Yet he is
outside themselves, and the divine is within themselves. They contemplate his form,
surrender to his personality, refuse to look within. As long as they do this, so long does
the Consciousness elude them.
95
When a man recognizes that all he really needs comes to him from the higher self, and
not from other men, and in the measure that he uses his own efforts to complete his
development and so come closer in consciousness to that self, in that measure will he
gain what he needs.
96
Books however sacred, ceremonies however impressive, lectures however learned, even
Masters however wise are still only outer helps and as such must in the end be
discarded.
97
Despite all the high idealistic talk of oneness, brotherhood and egolessness, each of us is
still an individual, still has to dwell in a body of his own, to use a mind of his own and
experience feelings of his own. To forget this is to practise self-deception. Each will
come to God in the end but he will come as a purified transformed and utterly changed
person, lived in and used by God as he himself will live in and be conscious of the
presence of God.
98
His inner self has the capacity of making its own revelations to him. These got, he will
find himself increasingly independent of those which come from outside, from the
hearsay of other men or the writings of dogmatic traditions.
99
What a number of men and women can no longer get from church or temple, they must
get from their own selves through mysticism.
100
He needs to realize that his greatest power will come to him through his own Overself
and not through any other source, such as the overshadowing by spirits, and so on.
Through this eventual realization, he will attain to greater progress and render much
deeper service. Thus he will fulfil his own highest destiny.
101
Let him stand in his own place, and not seek to occupy that of another. Let him find a
life that is real, and not copied. But such admonitions are good only so far as he has
already come into communion with the Overself.
102
Ultimately, there is only one real Master for every spiritual seeker, and that is his own
divine Overself. The human teacher may assist him to the extent of giving him a
temporary emotional uplift or a temporary intellectual perception, but he cannot bestow
permanent divine consciousness on another individual. All that the teacher can do is to
point out the way through the labyrinth; the journey must be made by the seeker
himself. For example, an individual living alone on a desert island could travel through
all the stages of the Quest and attain the highest realization even though he had no
visible teacher. The Overself will give him all the guidance and help he needs. However,
he is likely to mistakenly believe that his own ego is making the progress.
103
All that he needs for the management of life can be had from within.
104
If a man is to remain forever the mere appendage of another man, if his mind is to echo
back only that other man's idea, the question arises: When will he come to himself, his
Atma? For is this not the final purpose of our life here? He who has reached this stage
when he must cease being the shadow of others, will not fall into proud deceptive self-
assertion if he humbly yields and follows the inner voice.
105
All efforts that take him outside of himself are only halting and temporary concessions
to human weakness. The soul being inside of himself, he must in the end turn within.
Intelligent nonconformity
130
No man comes to the knowledge of his divinity through a crowd of other men. No
human entity can discover its own relation to God through any group method. The way
to spiritual awareness is entirely individual, essentially lonely, inescapably within
oneself. That is to say, it is mystical. Insofar as religion succeeds in showing the way, it
ceases to be religion and becomes, or rather, consummates itself in, mysticism.
131
Nothing is final and absolute. All is relative. Nobody need obey any mandate to bind
himself forever to any single group of ideas, need follow any sectarian flag. If he is to
surrender his allegiance at all, it can only be reasonably done to the perfect synthesis of
all that is needed for human living in all its departments.
132
If the man of letters is to hear and pronounce the word of truth, he must be independent
of groups, organizations, parties, and institutions. He must be at liberty to play with
many different points of view without committing himself forever and finally to any of
them.
133
They must try to work out interpretations of scripture and life for themselves, not
remain tied to obligatory ones imposed from without. They must begin to stand on their
own individual resources or they will never rise to the level of direct spiritual
communion at all. The tendency to look to one man or one organization as the sole
repository of spiritual wisdom may become dangerous to their further progress. In The
Wisdom of the Overself it was mentioned that the currents of evolution and the
circumstances of modernity have created new cultural values which in turn have
lessened the need of such dependence. One proof of this assertion lies in the fact that the
same line of change may be seen also in the social, political, and economic spheres.
134
To seek knowledge from unprejudiced sources is a rule hard to fulfil, because such
sources are rare. The next best thing is to be an unprejudiced seeker, and this is the ideal
I have tried to follow. Sectarianism is everywhere, because institutions and
organizations are everywhere. There is a better chance for the truth seeker when flying
the flag of independence.
135
There are those in India who have made a sect out of Vedanta, even of Advaita Vedanta.
The intolerance, the fanaticism of the narrower groups and religions has been brought in
here too. Let the Western student of philosophy who takes it seriously enough to think,
breathe in remembrance, and live actively by it, be warned and stay free, unjoined,
unlabelled, spacious in outlook, understandingly tolerant in practice.
136
"Study both sympathetically and critically the other contemporary mystical movements
but do not join them." Such is my general answer to the seeker who questions me about
them. He should certainly examine and study other teachings, not necessarily for his
acceptance, but for his broadening. Be a good student, but a bad joiner! For he will find
it difficult to recognize the lineaments of full perfection either in the teaching or the
practice of any existing institution or movement. However, the danger here is that he
may overconcentrate on their study or practice, elevate side-routes into the main one,
and finally get so absorbed in them as temporarily to abandon the original quest
altogether. So there are certain reservations in my advice, a certain watchfulness is
needed during such studies. He should take care to be only an enquirer into these cults
and not a follower of them. He should be first, a sympathetic enquirer and then only
exercise the philosophical right of severely critical examination. In the end, every
aspirant must find his "own." "The path of another is dangerous," says the Bhagavad
Gita. Unless a spiritual teaching has enough inspiration behind it to help him
successfully tackle his gravest personal problems, it is not the right one--however much
it may be so to others. For he needs grace, and does not call in vain.
137
With so many cults, creeds, religions, sects, and societies claiming that their teaching is
the only true one or that their path is the only path to salvation, the seeker will either get
bewildered or be forced to do the right thing--which is to exercise his own independent
judgement and not to accept any claim on its mere face value.
138
Whoever loves truth in its fullness cannot put on the chains of a partisanship and stay
confined in a church, a temple, a mosque, a synagogue, a "school of thought," a theism,
or an atheism. Therefore he cannot become an adherent to any one belief only, a convert
to any one religion, a member of any one group, or a follower of any one man but must
remain an independent, that is to say, a philosopher (philo=liker or lover,
sophia=wisdom). He sees that all doctrines, all ways of belief and thought are steps on
the way, satisfy some need of some persons, and hence are of service at some time. But
he sees not only that truth's fullness is allied to his own freedom: it is also allied to
namelessness.
139
The fellowship of philosophy requires no ritual, no immersion, no dogmatic confession,
no creedal test. It is free and non-sectarian. It shuts no one in, no one out.
140
Philosophy is for the free mind, willing to live without organizational bondage, and
understanding that what it seeks must be found and grasped for itself.
141
Since the real essence of philosophy has only an inner content, which must be felt
intuitively and grasped intellectually, but no outer form, it cannot become material for a
cult, an organized group. It must lead each person on his own individual way, letting
him grow naturally from within. His quest will then take the independent course proper
for him, not made to conform to one suitable only to others.
142
He who can commune with his soul by himself does not need a church, a labelled
religion. Society has no right to impose it on him. In their naïve adolescent gropings, the
young who discard their traditional form of religion, feel something of this truth.
143
How can he who loves the Spirit, who feels Its goodwill which excludes nothing,
associate himself with an enclosed group or community which excludes everyone who
is not an adherent of its particular faith?
144
The refusal to join any ecclesiastical church or religious society does not leave a man
spiritually homeless. If he faithfully exercises himself in meditation and seeks to
practise the presence of God, what better "home" could he have?
145
There is an independence which gives a man special strength for it allows him to
possess complete purity of motive. It does not come easily, for he has to stay clear of all
attempts to organize the truth, of all orthodoxies, groups, factions, parties, and sects
which claim to be united with it. He may align himself with none of those. Therefore he
can take up no defined position, no particular program. Is he then a neutral? No and yes.
Is he an individualist? Yes and no.
146
Only this total independence of all cults, creeds, groups, and organizations can enable
him to find the facts as they are, rather than imaginary pictures of the facts.
147
If the independence of the philosophic position stops him from speaking for any
particular established religion or mystical cult, it allows him to view all religions and all
cults with fairness and detachment.
148
It is to be found in the privacy of your own mind: no cult, group, or church will provide
it.
149
Philosophy stresses the need of development's being individual. Students of other
teachings may grow in groups, but not students of philosophy.
150
It is not an essential part of the outer conditions of his life that he should subscribe to
any particular institution or organization, but if he is led to do so that will be acceptable
also if it is an honourable one.
151
Mind in its ultimate condition is free and infinite. We, as humans, are at the very
beginning of its discovery. Let us not set up false steps to our journey or ignorantly put
up fences to block our view. Let us avoid the ill-informed littleness of sectarianism, the
common eagerness to huddle under a label.
152
For several reasons he is not a joiner. Most sects have only partial and limited views,
most mix some error with their truth, and most develop ugly dogmatic tyrannies.
Furthermore, their adherents, believing that they alone possess the truth, generally
exclude all others from the warmer temperatures of their goodwill--if they do not openly
dislike them. But the largest reason for his refusal is that the Overself is unlimited,
unconfined; he wants to express this freedom.
153
The orthodox way of looking at these questions will no longer serve. A new way is
needed. The right answers will be found only if we reorient our thinking and free it from
the dogmas of established institutions.
154
He is not a joiner because of several reasons: one of them is that joiners are too often
too one-sided in approach, too limited in outlook, too exclusive to let truth in when it
happens to appear in a sect different from his own. Another reason is that too frequently
there is a tyranny from above, imitated by followers, which forbids any independent
thought and does not tolerate any real search.
155
Man's search for truth cannot be properly carried on unless he has full freedom in it.
Where is the religious or religio-mystical institution which is willing to grant that to
him? Is there a single one which lets him start out without being hampered by
authoritarian dogmas, taboos, limitations, and traditions which it would impose upon
him?
156
Lectures, societies, and group-movements are of limited value: they can never replace
nor achieve what is gained by one's own individual efforts made in the right way.
157
The seeker after truth will not find his way easy to travel. He may find that an
institution, an authority, or an organization is suffocating him mentally or oppressing
him emotionally. This may be the hour when he must claim his freedom.
158
It is illusory to believe that, by blindly handing or humbly submitting his character and
credo, his standards and values, his spiritual purposes and practices, to any organized
group or established church, to a teacher, guide, or guru, to form and formulate, a man
can evade the responsibility of judging them for himself, accepting or rejecting by
himself. It is required of every fully human being that he be individual, not a parasite,
and that he be himself, not someone else.
159
The prestige of institutional mysticism, like that of official religion, mesmerizes nearly
everyone interested in the subject. The independent mystic, who refuses all affiliation
with any sect, school, ashram, monastery, group, or society, is suspect and finds himself
left almost in isolation. But although this may seem unfortunate, it is so only in some
ways. In other ways, it leaves him entirely free from the bonds of dogma, free to remain
faithful to truth irrespective of all other considerations, free to speak in a voice whose
authority comes not from worldly power but from spiritual status.
160
He should not change his chains by going from one master or one sect to another.
Rather should he drop all chains.
161
He is entitled to be set free from his former dependence on the church so that he may
live his own individual inner life.
162
How can he bring himself to join any group, cult, or sect when he believes all of them to
be right, only some are more right than others, and all of them to be wrong, only some
are more wrong than others? There is not one whose limitations he does not see. He
prefers the truthfulness of being uncommitted to any "ism," and the freedom of being
unjoined to any group.
163
He is not likely to be a member of any organized movement because his mind is too
large to be exclusive. He is outside all organized groups because, in spirit, he is inside
all of them.
164
Far from the din and disparagements of jarring sects, he lives unlabelled and free.
165
He belongs to no particular named, classified, and indoctrinated group, and this keeps
his own freedom while excluding none from his general goodwill. At the same time he
stays open to truth and avoids the closed mind, fixed only on its own dogmas opinions
and beliefs.
166
The only group he is likely to be a member of is the human race!
167
He is unwilling to be tied to any sect or coterie, established orthodoxy or organizational
unorthodoxy. He may even refuse to fit into any of the accepted patterns. He has to
follow a light of his own. Such an anarchistic attitude is likely to provoke hostility and
create detractors.
168
I have an Emersonian love of spiritual freedom and intellectual independence, a
Krishnamurtian urge to keep away from all restrictive, limiting, and narrowing groups,
organizations, and institutions. I have seen so many lost to the cause of Truth by such
constrictions of the mind and heart, so much of its good undone by this harm, that I
shrink from the idea of becoming tagged as some one man's disciple or as a member of
some ashram, society, or church. If this man has found the Right, why not let his natural
expression of it--whether in writing, art, or life--be enough? Why create a myth around
him, to befog others and falsify the goal? Why not let well alone?
169
Having no official connection with any group, sect, organization, or church leaves me
free to help anyone, anywhere.
170
A strongly individualistic temperament cannot be at ease in the collective membership
of an organization where dogmas are set up like fences and where patriotism rejects
salvation for those outside. Such a temperament needs the free air of unfettered thinking
and uncircumscribed goodwill. It can sympathize intellectually with many different
points of view without losing itself in any one of them, but it can do so only because it
belongs to none.
171
The routine devotions of an institution do not appeal to this type of temperament--
sensitive, moody, and independent as it is.
172
The man who has seen the light and experienced its warmth will prefer his own way of
living if it is the consequence of his awakening.
173
His mind is bound by no religious dogmas, his conduct by no prohibitions or
commandments. But this does not mean he is free to do what he pleases.
174
One man and one God are all the organization needed. More is a superfluity. The seeker
who cherishes his independent path and individual thought cannot comfortably fit into a
group where all alike must be pressed into the same shape.
175
It seems historically inevitable that every spiritual movement should sooner or later
become organized and institutionalized. In that way it reflects the need and serves the
tendency of average human nature. But where a person is not average and refuses to be
taken up into it by that means, preferring to keep his independence and his allegiance,
he is just as much entitled to do so.
176
Those who feel tempted to do so, may study the public cults and listen to the public
teachers but it would be imprudent to join any of the first or follow any of the second. It
would be wiser to remain free and independent or they may be led astray from the
philosophical path.
177
By rejecting the easy way of joining a particular sect, a labelled group, he rejects at the
same time the withdrawal of sympathy or understanding from all other groups which
usually or often accompanies the joining. If the universal character of truth requires him
to keep his mind uncorralled, the personal need of strength confirms the requirement.
Requirements
189
As much as anything else, one needs personal freedom in this search after truth. Every
form of interference and obstruction comes from sources which have acquired only a
partial or false insight into truth. But such freedom is permitted only insofar as one is
good enough, wise enough, balanced enough, judicious enough, and discriminating
enough to use it properly. Otherwise it leads to non-truth and self-deception.
190
He must learn to think for himself and to practise discrimination for himself, if he wants
to find his way to truth.
191
If a seeker finds no one in his surroundings, contacts, or society near enough to his level
of spiritual interests, then he must accept his loneliness, because he has chosen to draw
away from the common preoccupation. For in order to be a working philosopher, a man
must go his own way. This demand for individuality requires courage and wisdom. If he
lacks higher knowledge, intuitional feeling, and intellect--whose combination is
wisdom--then he must seek to develop them and this demands work. Meanwhile, he can
take help from personal guides and superior books. Without wisdom, or at least genuine
efforts to work towards it, his course could be wrongly set and he could arrive at
disaster.
192
To withdraw from sectarian community life and walk alone requires qualities that only
few possess. There is security, comfort, moral and worldly support in it. To be able to
abandon these things a man must have a strong inner urge as well as a continuous clear
perception of philosophy's meaning.
193
The weakling cannot walk this path. A man needs strength to follow out what his deep
intuition tells him to do, especially where it departs from the allegedly rational or the
socially conventional. If his guided attitude or action meets with criticism or opposition,
what is that to him? He is not answerable for what other people think about him. That is
their responsibility. He is answerable only for what he himself thinks and does.
194
Only the man who has a passion to acquire the certainty of truth, who has the courage to
hold unorthodox views and come to independent conclusions, who lives in an
atmosphere of original thought, and to whom the charge of heresy is no charge at all, is
at all likely to find his way to the truth.
195
Their duty is to act as pioneers; but if they are to be successful pioneers, they will need
courage to forget outworn ideas and to free themselves from dying traditions so as to
cope with the new conditions which are arising. In this connection, the suggestion that it
is also a duty to co-operate with existing spiritual movements would be acceptable if it
were practicable; but experience will show that most of these movements are unable to
enter that deep union of hearts which alone can guarantee success to any external union.
Such a plan would end in failure and it is better for them to pursue their own
independent course than waste time and force in attempting what would not succeed and
is not really needed.
196
The freedom to command one's life in one's own way can be got only by first getting the
fearlessness to disregard the criticism and to ignore the expectations of other people.
197
He who would follow an independent path must, to some extent, be fearless. He must
refuse to be intimidated by the power, prestige, claims, or size of established
organizations, just as he must refuse to be deluded by the idealizations of themselves
which they hold before the public.
198
Few people know what a free existence really is; most people live caged in by fear of,
or enslavement to, the opinion of others. Even the rich do not know it for their cages are
gilt and comfortable. Even the spiritual do not know it for they merely echo back what
these others want them to think about God. Complete freedom is possible only to those
who have a special character, one that is devoid of tyrannizing ambitions and despotic
cravings, and even of unworldly strivings.
199
Such is the strange paradox of the quest that on the one hand he must foster determined
self-reliance but on the other yield to a feeling of utter dependence on the higher
powers.
200
Those who are self-sufficient and prefer to learn and develop by themselves, are those
who especially need to practise this inward listening and waiting.
201
What we mean is that modern man has to become more self-reliant, has to throw off the
remnants of tribal consciousness which still rule him, has to learn to think for himself.
202
But if he must stand aloof to live his own way, with his own free thoughts, it remains a
benevolent, amiable independence. He wishes all beings well while knowing they
receive, suffer, or enjoy the results of their own physical, emotional, or mental action.
203
His desire to express individual views, character, and personality must be respected so
long as he does not try to impose them aggressively or tyrannically on others.
204
It is not necessary to be surly and irritable in order to be an individualist. One can still
be affable, genial, civil, and courteous--even radiant with goodwill. It is all a matter of
inner equilibrium.
205
He must refuse to violate his intellectual integrity or sacrifice his spiritual
independence.
206
If he is unable to continue in this quest without the association, encouragement, or
sympathies of others who are also following it, then he had better not enter it at all, for
quite obviously he is not ready for it nor sufficiently appreciative of its values.
207
If "being different" is an honest result of the search for higher truth, it must be
acceptable. But when it is merely a disguised egocentric exhibitionism, it becomes
reprehensible.
208
He must try to keep his life in his own hands if he would keep it free from influences
that would take away the ideals which he has specifically set up for it to follow. If he
values freedom, he must refuse to put himself in a position where he will be compelled
to echo the views of those who do not share his ideas. He may have to choose between
the trials of sturdy independence and the temptations of enervating security.
209
It does not ask him to make harsh sacrifices but it does ask him to make reasonable
ones. If they seem harsh to him that is only because he has been kept until then in a state
of so-called normality by the powerful suggestions of organized society. This normality
is merely the pooling of common ignorance and the sharing of common weakness.
210
If the mind is to engage with success in the quest for truth, it must first be unfettered
and then unprejudiced.
211
He has to pick his way through mistaken teachings, among provisional standpoints, and
between ambitious gurus.
212
To venture so far afield from the common way and yet keep quite sane and practical,
and not become a human oddity, a social freak, is something indeed.
213
It requires moral strength or mental power to refuse the gregarious support of the
crowd--be it sectarian church, a mystical group, or some other combination. It requires
faith in oneself and the courage to resist the pull of others and be an individual.
214
The self-sufficiency of his ideal, its remoteness from popular ways, may be boldly and
openly expressed in action or kept as an interior and hidden thing. For most the first
may prove to be an imprudent course but for others it may be a necessity.
215
Mentally he cannot fit himself into any of the accepted categories which the society of
his place and time provide, so an independent and solitary path attracts him. Physically,
he may have to make an uneasy compromise with society, with the result that both
benefit by their mutual services. Thus without doing violence to his chief principles he
yet finds a way to live among those who have no use for them.
216
Before anyone can carry out an independent investigation of truth, he must first possess
the capacity to do so. To develop this capacity where it is lacking, the philosophic
discipline is prescribed.
217
He is not prepared to relinquish individual expression, however much he is only too
understanding of the need to relinquish the ego's dominance--which is not the same
thing.
218
It is what he expects from himself that will be more effective than what someone else
expects from him. Rules and regulations thrust upon him from outside which he is
unwilling or unable to enforce will be of much less use.
249
The point is that holiness is not necessarily limited to hermits and monks: it may also
belong to householders. Whether it be the Long or the Short Path, both may be practised
in the daily routine of life.
Loneliness
315
There is little place today as ever for the spiritual individualist, the man who cannot
betray himself and deny truth for the sake of peaceably settling down in one of society's
organized groups or established institutions. The climate is hostile to him. He must
remain a lone thinker, self-exiled, paying a price but getting his money's worth.
316
The independent mind which does not wish to commit itself to any creed or group or
cult must accept its loneliness as the price of its independence.
317
The fact may be noted without reproach and without antagonism, without surprise and
without arrogance, that men are the victims of the very institutions they have
themselves created and maintained. The individual who refuses to be lost in their
mesmerized surrender to the false prestige of these institutions must go forth alone into
an arid and empty wilderness, must set himself apart from the world around him.
318
He has entered a world of being where few men will be able to follow him. Their lack
of understanding will be the bar.
319
He will find that few of his kind are settled in this world, a discovery which he may
meet either with disappointment or with resignation.
320
The man who is travelling this inner way soon finds and feels its loneliness. He may try
to get rid of the feeling by joining a group, but this can give only a partial liberation
and, in the end, only a temporary one. But this loneliness need not be a cause of
suffering. Rather he may come to enjoy it.
321
The feeling of being isolated, the sense of walking a lonely path, is true outwardly but
untrue inwardly. For there he is companioned by the Overself's gentle ever-drawing
love. He has only to grope within sufficiently to know this for himself, and to know it
with absolute certitude.
322
The higher the peak one climbs, the lonelier the trail becomes. There is a paradox here
for the loneliness exists outside the body, not inside the heart, and the more it grows
outside the less it is felt inside.
323
The quest is to be walked alone. Yet although this means that one must have a solitary
and creedless path if the Word is to be said, the Touch is to come, the Glimpse is to be
seen, or the Feeling of the presence is to enter awareness, the gracious revelation is the
sacred compensation.
324
Because of the soul's own infinitude, its expressions in art and culture, its manifestations
in society and industry, will always be infinitely varied. If we find the contrary to exist
among us today, it is because we have lost the soul's inspiration and forfeited our
spiritual birthright. The monotonous uniformity of our cities, the uncreative sameness of
our society, the mass-produced opinions of our culture, and the standardized products of
our immobilized mentalities reveal one thing glaringly--our cramping inner poverty.
The man who possesses a spark of individuality must today disregard the rule of
conformity and go his own way in appalling starving loneliness amid this lack of
creativeness, this dearth of aspiration.
325
In the end he must inwardly walk alone--as must everyone else however beloved--since
God allows no one to escape this price.
326
As he climbs towards the ideal he finds himself drawing farther and farther away from
his fellows who herd on the plains below. That which draws him to itself, also isolates
him from others.
327
He may wander through the low haunts of life, seeking the smiling figures of Fortune
and Love. He may go, too, into the higher abodes of better people. In both places he
finds illusion and frustration. So it comes about that he ceases his wandering and sits
silently by a lone hearth. He knows then what he had always dimly suspected.
328
Emerson (in a letter to a young seeker): "A true soul will disdain to be moved except by
what natively commands it, though it should go sad and solitary in search of its master a
thousand years. . . . I wish you the best deliverance in that contest to which every soul
must go alone."
329
If he is really to attain Truth, he will have to learn how to stand solidly by himself, how
to live within himself, and how to be satisfied with his inner purpose as his only
companion.
330
From the moment that he has embarked on this quest he has, in a subtle and internal
sense, separated himself from his family, his nation, and his race.
331
He must be prepared to accept an appalling loneliness if he wishes to walk this path. But
the loneliness will be limited to his novitiate. For a new presence will slowly and
quietly enter his inner life during its advanced stage.
332
There is a point at which no aspirant can surrender his ideals under the compulsion of a
materialistic society, can no longer come to terms with it. Such a point will be vividly
indicated to him by his own conscience. It is then that, of his own free will, he must
accept the cup of suffering.
333
The disciple must not shirk the isolation of his inner position, must not resent the
loneliness of his spiritual path. He must accept what is in the very nature of the thing he
is attempting to do.
334
The aloneness that he feels must be accepted. Only then, only when he understands and
dwells calmly in it, will the great power of the Saint come forth and dwell with him in
turn.
335
It is most pleasant for a man to feel himself at one with the crowd, most uncomfortable
to feel himself at variance with it. Yet the seeker who has heard truth's call, has no other
choice than to accept this intellectual loneliness and emotional discomfort if he is not to
find what, for him, is the worse fate of violating his spiritual integrity.
336
The cure for loneliness is company; but if there is no affinity in the company, then it is
only a quack cure. This prescription is true for everyone, even for the sage, for he finds
his company in the Overself's self-presence.
337
The attempt to follow a lone path may well make him wonder at times whether or not he
is making a mistake. It needs more than ordinary stubbornness to remain in a minority
of one or two. He will certainly need at times, and gladly welcome, some reassurance
from others.
338
He must be willing to stand alone, although that may not prove to be necessary.
339
"Is there not an unnatural air about the quest?" This is a question which is sometimes
asked. The answer depends, of course, upon a definition of terms. The multitude of non-
questers are certainly not living close to Nature. What the questioner really wants to say
is that the quest seems to lift a man out of the herd, to make him no longer average, to
mark him different from the other men around him. Its goals do not accord with the
ordinary human desires and the common instincts.
340
There is only one real loneliness and that is to feel cut off from the higher power.(P)
4. Organized Groups
o Benefits for beginners
o Problems
o Relation to founder
4 - Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 4: Organized Groups
Organized Groups
Problems
35
The pressure to make all people members of organizations, to herd them together and
affix labels, is a kind of mania. Why should there not be room for untrammelled,
independent minds, who prefer to remain free and uninfluenced, untied to any one
group?
36
It is a common but fallacious belief that by joining a group we get at the truth more
quickly, or progress to spiritual reality more easily.
37
When men act together in a religious or political organization, they often act worse than
they would as individuals.
38
Why is it that the eagerness with which so many disciples flock to join an ashram ends
so often in a deterioration of character after they have lived in it for a while? The
answer is that there is a fundamental fallacy behind the thinking which draws them into
it. It is the fallacy that they have any business with the other disciples. Their true
business is with their master alone.
39
The disadvantage of adhering to a single system of belief or joining a single
organization teaching religious, mystical, or hygienic principles is that the sound truths
given out are usually one-sided; they ignore others equally sound and valuable but
outside the purview of the system's founder or the organization's leader. This neglect
prevents attainment of the full truth about the subject.
40
There is indeed some perception of this but it is quite a confused one. That which
ignorant aspiration accepts as the necessity for joining some group, is much more the
awareness of its own spiritual helplessness than of the group's spiritual strength.
41
Most groups of human beings, most of their associations, societies, and organizations
suffer at some time from troubles caused by human weaknesses and shortcomings.
These include divisions, jealousies, malices, and personal dislikes or hostilities. This is
as true of idealistic and religious groups as of business and professional ones.
42
Those with experience of the cults and organizations know how unsatisfactory they are
in the end. The passage of truth from mind to mind has always been a personal matter
and cannot be otherwise, just as the training in meditation is equally personal.
43
The teacher soon finds that he is faced by a new problem: the temperamental
incompatibilities of the students. They cannot study together without coming into
disagreement and they cannot work together without coming into conflict. They take
offense too easily and do not realize that the teacher has duties toward many other
students besides themselves. They can't even discover that the teacher has sent more
letters or given more interviews to another student without becoming jealous of the
latter. Thus the personal factor cannot be eliminated from any group. In the end, the
teacher finds that he has to advise each student not to concern himself about the others.
So the teacher concludes that he can get better results by dealing with each individual
separately than in a group.
44
Those who serve the interests of their institution, those who mold its policy and become
its instrument, will have to choose between such activity and the Ideal.
45
To overreact against the misuse of power or the deficiencies of an institution is to
commit a fresh error.
46
Whilst men are imperfect and whilst power makes them drunk, it is foolish to entrust
the government of any religious institution, any religious organization, or any human
life to a single man.
47
The organization of a church, group, or society along the usual lines is too often
motivated by a mixture of urges--some creditable but others not. If there is the desire to
spread what is believed to be true, there may also be the desire to occupy a prominent
leading position in the organization, the ambition to dominate others.
48
Men try to escape their responsibility in this matter by handing it over to an official
Church, or Spiritual Guide, or referring to Scripture. But they fail to see that in the end
it is they themselves who judge between doctrines, decide upon beliefs, choose spiritual
paths, request ceremonies and accept observances, and finally and personally pronounce
the words: this is Truth! To accept belief is unconsciously or consciously to pass a
judgement, one's own judgement, on that belief.
49
The idea of introducing Questers to other Questers has generally failed to effect the
original purpose and has not seldom had disappointing results. It is better to recognize
that this is an individual work, not to be identified with any group effort, even so small a
group as two or three, let alone the larger ones of several dozen. People cannot blend so
easily as to form a harmonious friendship or group, even if they are Questers. Yet many
beginners in their enthusiasm try to create such friendships and have to learn their
lesson when the friendship falls apart. It is better to let people find their affinity and
form their companionships in a natural way. There is no duty laid upon anyone, whether
teacher or taught, to give introductions unless a direct, intuitive bidding points to that
duty.
50
Even where an organization is not actually obstructive or misleading, it is often
cumbersome and unnecessary.
51
Can the inquiring and aspiring person find no better refuge anywhere than some rigid
church or ashram? Must he join some institution and have the rest of his life laid out for
him by others even if it does violence to his own finer feelings and best reasonings?
Must he join a crowd of other aspirants or attach himself to some persuasive leader? It
is a fact that many if not most do this, which shows the lack of strength in their minds
and characters; but on the other hand a more popular way is easier and more
comfortable.
52
Belonging to an elite group, whether or not it be real as self-claimed, allows its
members to feel superior, to be condescending, and to denigrate others.
53
A movement may begin and seek to keep itself free from organization, administration,
and authority, but it is unlikely to remain so. For human beings, fallible or ambitious,
frail or emotional, will sooner or later seek to impose their ideas, will, or themselves on
the others.
54
It was an old monk of the early Eastern Orthodox Church, Isikhi, who long ago
witheringly remarked that if spiritual talk is too frequent and too prolonged, it becomes
idle chatter.
55
Few are willing to sacrifice their desire for the gregarious support offered by joining an
organization and therefore few see how this binds them to its dogmas, imprisons them
in its practices or methods, and obstructs their free hearing of the intuitive voice of their
own soul.
56
I am not enamoured overmuch of this modern habit, which forms a society at faint
provocation. A man's own problem stares him alone in the face, and is not to be solved
by any association of men. Every new society we join is a fresh temptation to waste
time.
57
The great mistake of all spiritual organizations is to overlook the fact that progress or
salvation is a highly individual matter. Each person has his unique attitude towards life;
each must move forward by his own expanding comprehension and especially by his
own personal effort.
58
There is a moment in the career of the seeker when he may have to face the problem of
joining some special organization. Here we can deal only with the general question
itself. For most beginners, association with such an organization may be quite helpful,
but for most intermediates it will be less so, and for all proficients it will be definitely
detrimental. Sooner or later the seeker will discover that in accepting the advantages of
such association he has also to accept the disadvantages, and that the price of serving its
interests is partnership in its evils. He discovers in time that the institution which was to
help him reach a certain end, becomes itself that end. Thus the true goal is shut out of
sight, and a false one is substituted for it. He can keep his membership in the
organization only by giving up something of his individual wholeness of mind and
personal integrity of character. The organization tends to tyrannize over his thoughts and
conduct, to weaken his power of correct judgement, and to destroy a fresh, spontaneous
inner life. He will come in time to refuse to take any organization at its own valuation
for he will see that it is not the history behind it but the service it renders that really
matters.
59
Their devotion to the guru, the cult, or the group is, in terms of real spiritual progress,
both a help and a hindrance. As a sign, and insofar as it is a measure, of aspiration to
rise toward a superior state of being, it is a help. But as another bar added to the cage in
which they live, shutting out all those who are not co-followers or co-members, it
increases partisanship and widens prejudice.
60
To tie oneself to a sectarian group and to its ideas is to form another attachment for the
ego.
61
Group emotion is worked up until it becomes a substitute for personal inspiration.
Either through ignorance of or inability to practise meditation, or both, the group
members are happy to share, and are satisfied with, a common experience on the
shallowest level. But nothing will replace individual work at self-development leading
to deeper experience and higher knowledge.
62
When too much is made of an organization or institution and too little of the idea behind
it, the leaders become tyrannical and the followers fanatical. That is, their character is
corrupted.
63
Two of the grave and discriminative defects of the Indian methods of seeking Truth are
the turning of men into Gods and the glorifying of imperfect institutions. While it is
possible for the student to learn to some extent from these sources in the East and also
in the West, he must keep in mind the fact that they are helpful only to beginners, and
should exercise caution in joining any of their organizations. Our present times call for
firsthand information, experience, and individual proof of the Truth, which the Quest
alone offers. Institutions and organizations, on the other hand, offer nothing, demand
much, and actually impede progress. There are a very few redeeming exceptions which
justify their existence, but these are not generally known.
64
The assertion that spiritual chaos and anarchy are the alternatives to spiritual
institutionalism and organization is absurd, for the contradictory claims and teachings of
the various institutions themselves lead to a chaotic situation.
65
Only the uninformed can be deceived by the outside appearance of unity in these
organized groups. The struggles and conflicts and factions which really exist inside
them are a better indication of their moral grade than their tall talk in print or lecture.
66
Those who are distrustful of organization for religious purposes find good reasons in
history for their attitude. The records betray its inner failure, how it really substitutes
one kind of worldliness for another, how it merely offers ambition a different stage to
play on, or how it replaces personal self-seeking by the corporate kind.
67
Why should many who are unable as individuals to lift themselves in meditation,
devotion, or prayer be able to do so as a group? It is illogical to believe that they can,
auto-suggestive to believe that they do.
68
The way of group organization is only a poor substitute for the way of individual
inspiration.
69
I am quite chary of organizations, because I have seen too much in the West and the
East of the evils which it quickly breeds, as I am quite unimpressed by centralization
because I have seen how hard it is to eradicate the illusions to which it leads. Instead of
organization, it is better to encourage individual effort; and instead of centralization, it is
wiser to encourage individual deepening.
70
The biggest deceiver in religio-mystical life is the institutional establishment, the
organizational group. For here the followers have the experience of being nourished
when in actuality only the social need is being nourished. Here the truth and its virtue,
beauty, strength, reality, and above all its transcendence, which is totally outside
ordinary worldly experience, are imitated effectually and successfully. So the followers
are satisfied and fall into complacence. The Quest is deserted and the copy which is
substituted for it has the advantage of being much easier and pleasanter for all
concerned.
71
The establishment of spiritual ashrams or communal colonies is an enterprise of which,
we hope, we shall never be guilty. Such institutions usually find an enthusiastic
response from persons who like to join cranky cults, indulge in endless tea-table talk,
and worship leaders suffering from inflated egos. We however are working for those
who have understood that it is better to worship God in solitude than in a public hall or
church and who believed us when we constantly repeated that institutions invariably
end as the greatest obstructions to the progress of genuine spirituality. Their material
expansion is usually taken as a sign of the expansion of spiritual influence whereas
actually it is a sign of the expansion of spiritual rot. Just as the League of Nations
erected magnificent million-pound buildings as its headquarters only a short while prior
to its total collapse, so these institutions flourish externally at the cost of their internal
life. We ask those who have faith in our teaching to keep clear of spiritual organizations.
72
The service of an organization or a group association is that it may be able to point out
the way to those who are just starting to travel the path. The disservice begins when it
seeks to keep its own power over him and misguides him and misinterprets the truth
under the sway of such selfish infatuation.
73
Every form of organization which claims to be of spiritual service is, the more it grows,
in danger of becoming a spiritual oppressor.
74
We establish institutions to uplift men. The institutions turn themselves by degrees into
vested interests. The original purpose is then lost and a selfish purpose replaces it. The
consequence is that men are both affected and infected by this moral deterioration of the
institutions. They are no longer helped to rise, nor even prevented from falling.
75
It is unfortunate and regrettable, but all history bears out the fact that among religious
believers and mystical followers, organization sooner or later leads to exploitation. It is
more likely to happen, of course, after the prophet, teacher, guru has passed away, but in
a number of recent cases it was by no means absent even during his lifetime.
76
There is no hint in Jesus' words that he wanted men to form themselves into an
organized religion, to appoint a hierarchy, to create a liturgy. Was he himself not in
protest against the Hebrew version of these things? Did not he suffer from its tyranny,
and in the end die by it? Why should he want to set up a new institution, which would
inevitably end in the same way?
77
As a spiritual organization grows in numbers, it grows also in the potentialities of
internal dissension. The history of most organizations confirms this.
78
The history of Christianity in Nazi Germany illustrated the lack of spiritual vitality
which is the lamentable state of organized religion, where the institution becomes more
important than the teaching and the worldly strength of the man-made organization is
preserved by the sacrifice of its moral strength. Philosophy has no room for
organizations, foundations, institutions, and so on. Its teachers remain free.
79
The struggle between a high original purpose and low personal ambition goes on within
the organization.
80
Any organized sect which claims a monopoly on salvation, by that very act disproves its
claim. For in the end we are saved by Grace alone, which comes from or through the
Overself within us, whereas the sect is a man-made thing outside us.
81
It is not necessary for those who follow philosophy to enrol members or hold group
meetings. They need collect no dues and seek no converts.
82
The answer to those who defend group work by quoting Jesus' single statement, "Where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I, in the midst of them," is that
it contradicts his repeated statement, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," and is
more likely to be interpolated than authentic.
83
Within the exclusivity of a sect his power to think forcefully, creatively, and originally is
lost. He is forced into a narrow area, deprived of the stimulating results of world-search.
There is neither the wish nor the will to step outside the imposed borders of his own sect
and measure other ideas, test other ideals, and benefit by other insights. There is a
pathetic acceptance of mental captivity.
84
Every organization which perpetuates dogmas dares not admit new ideas which correct
the error of those dogmas, for such ideas would affront the beliefs of its followers!
85
All too soon an institution becomes a restricted, or even closed, system. Its ideas get
frozen into dogmas, its members begin to suffer from intellectual paralysis, and its
methods begin to savour of totalitarianism or tyranny.
86
The man who is captured by a particular religion, sect, group, or organization frequently
builds a wall around it, sets up a barrier between himself and non-members, excludes
every approach to God other than his own.
87
The independent seeker, who affiliates himself with no sectarian group, no fanatic
organization, no narrowing cult, avoids the tensions and discards the prejudices which
such affiliation usually brings with it. For those who are affiliated, contact with other
denominations creates the need of defending the selfish interests and the given dogmas
of their own, either directly or obliquely by attacking the others. In this way the tensions
and prejudices arise and subsist. They cannot come to an end until this exclusiveness
itself comes to an end. How many evils, hatreds, fights, and injustices come from it!
How many unjust malignments of character does it lead to! How much blind bigotry
does it cause, a bigotry which refuses to allow, and is unable to see, the good in cults
other than its own!
88
As soon as they begin to organize a movement, the other things begin also to emerge--
the narrow fanaticism, the limiting sectarianism, the intolerant attitude.
89
No organized church likes individual revelations to supplant its own authority.
90
In all matters spiritual, mystical, and religious, humanity is bewitched both by the spell
of the past and the prestige of the institution.
91
There are several systems, methods, groups, and organizations, but of acceptable ones
there are only few.
92
Too often the clinging to a particular teacher, the membership of a particular group,
leads at best to a naïve faith in the self-sufficiency of the tenets advocated, at worst to a
new sectarianism.
93
Sectarianism, zealotry, and bigotry develop by stages in the minds of followers.
94
The bigger an organization becomes, the more likely are dissensions and quarrels to
arise within it, despite all its professions of special sanctity or proclamations of
brotherly love. The essential things get gradually lost, the accidental are made more of
and treasured up. The Spirit is squeezed out, the superfluities brought in.
95
To quote in justification of group work or church gatherings Christ's words,
"Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them," is no justification at all. For most groups are anything from ten to a hundred in
number, most church gatherings range from twenty to a thousand in number. Christ did
not say that he would be present with a dozen, a score, two or three hundred, he
precisely stated the number should be two or three.
96
The belief that any institution or organization is divine has led to much superstition and
unnecessary strife: the true belief that all such things are strictly human, and therefore
fallible, as history repeatedly confirms, would have saved mankind much suffering.
97
All observation and experience suggests that when the things of the spirit are brought
into organized forms, such as societies and sects, the harm done to members
counterbalances the good.
98
Do not look for any group formation created by a philosopher, for you will find none.
He is sponsored by no church, no sect, no cult, no organization of any kind, for he needs
none. His credentials come from within, not from any outside source. He requires no
one to flatter his personal importance. If, therefore, you hear of such a group be assured
it is a religious or religio-mystical one, not a philosophic one.
99
An outward organization may be useful to those who are still on the religious and
mystical levels but for the purposes of philosophic advancement it is unnecessary.
Public societies are mere babels of dogmatic opinion and lead in the end to confusion.
The correct history of many spiritual organizations is not an edifying one. No formal
association or institution is of any real worth here. Every student must work hard on and
for himself. Outside of that he may catch inspiration and receive help from an expert
guide. The few who are able to walk together with him on this path will come along
with time; the others would only be a drag. But if he wants to join with other really
interested persons in studying the books together in an informal way, with no external
bond, he may try it.
100
The seeker after Reality will be suspicious of professional spirituality, although the
seeker after religion will be attracted by it. It is not necessary to advertise inner
attainment. Lao Tzu pushed the same point to its farthest extreme when he wrote,
"Those who know do not speak," to which we may add, "or proclaim themselves as
adepts, form spiritual societies, and seek disciples."
101
Philosophy can maintain its non-sectarian nature only by maintaining its non-
organizational and non-institutional character. Although certain societies and groups
profess to be non-sectarian, their actual history shows plainly their inability to sustain
this ideal. He who would be a true philosopher must turn to the only source of true
philosophy--the fount within himself. That is, he must turn inward, not outward to a
group.
102
Institutions tend to deaden inspirations.
103
Of all things Truth is the freest. So, if a man is to find it in all its genuineness, and not in
its distortions, caricatures, or fragmentation, not in any substitute for it, then he must
preserve his own freedom to search for it. But this is just what he cannot do so easily if
he joins a sect.
104
If any teacher or organization asks you to swear ceremoniously that you will not reveal
to others what you are taught, be sure that you will receive inferior occultism, not
philosophic truth. For the truth hides itself from the unready: it does not have to be
hidden from them.
105
Do not confuse the necessary secrecy of philosophic presentation with the portentous
secrecy of charlatanic cults.
106
It is not necessary to call meetings or organize societies in order to propagate truth.
107
There is no crowd salvation, no communal redemption. The monasteries and ashrams,
the organizations and societies, the institutions and temples have their place and use.
But the one is very elementary and the other is very limited. Whatever is most
worthwhile to, and in, a man must come forth from his own individual endeavour.
Society improves only as, and when, its members improve. This is strikingly shown by
the moral failure of Communist states and by the half-failure of established religions.
108
Most institutions and organizations have developed in time the fault of an egocentrism
which causes them to lose sight of their original higher purpose, and so they join the list
of additions to societies which have a mixed selfish and idealistic character.
109
Too many spiritual organizations exist mainly to serve those who create or staff them.
110
When those who direct the affairs of an institution become more concerned about the
state of its revenue than about its state of spirituality, when they are more affected by its
increasing financial returns than about its increasing materiality, it is time to pick up
one's hat and stick and bid it farewell.
Relation to founder
111
A school should exist not only to teach but also to investigate, not to formulate
prematurely a finalized system but to remain creative, to go on testing theories by
applying them and validating ideas by experience.(P)
112
The formation of a society of seekers may have a social value but it has little
instructional value, for it merely pools their common ignorance. The justification of a
society educationally is its possession of a competent teacher--competent because his
instruction possesses intellectual clarity and his knowledge possesses justifiable
certitude.
113
Why should anyone who has come to show men the interior way proceed to delude
them by pointing out an exterior one? In other words, if the kingdom of heaven is within
us, what use will it be to set up an institution without us? The primary task of a man sent
from God is not to found a church which will keep them still looking outward, and
hence in the wrong direction, but to shed invisible grace. If he or his closer disciples do
organize such a church, it is only as a secondary task and as a concession to human
weakness.
114
Oscar Wilde gave some good advice about such matters when he said, "The only
schools worth finding are schools without disciples."
115
The belief that a fully illumined master or religious prophet can be succeeded
generation after generation by a chain of equally illumined leaders following the same
tradition, is delusive. He cannot bequeath the fullness of his attainment to anyone, he
can only give others an impetus toward it. He himself is irreplaceable. If churches and
ashrams would only admit that they are led by faulty fallible men, liable to weakness
and error, they would render better spiritual service than by continuing to maintain the
partial imposture that they are not so led. If there were such public acknowledgment that
their authority and inspiration were very limited, religious and mystical institutions
would be more preoccupied with helping others than with themselves.
116
How can any institution, whether it be the family or the government or the church, be of
better character than the persons who comprise it, and certainly those who rule or lead
it?
117
To expect a Spiritual Master to repeat himself in the institution, organization, or order
which gathers around him, is to expect what history tells us never happens. Shelley,
Michelangelo, and Phidias did not found organizations to produce further Shelleys,
Michelangelos, and Phidiases. New persons must arise to express their own inspirations.
Why then found strangling institutions at all, why gather followers together into
exclusive sects, why create still more monasteries and lamaseries, why make leader-
worship a substitute for Spirit-and-truth worship?
118
Attachment to the group surrounding a master sheds a kind of prestige on them, and
gives each one a borrowed light or strength, which may be real or false.
119
No association of spiritually minded persons can as such rise higher than the Personality
who has inspired it, and in whose superior power and knowledge it has rested its roots.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson pithily phrases the thought: "An institution is the lengthened
shadow of one man." Europe and America, for instance, are dotted with groups working
along routes of mental and semi-spiritual development, but in every such group you will
find that it draws its real life from its Founder or from its Head. The point in
development reached by the Head marks the limitation to which he can bring his
followers, and he can take them no further.
120
In earlier centuries, the illumined man left his spiritual legacy in the hearts and minds of
those who had felt his power, or been guided by his light, or known his peace. The
institutions and organizations were usually the creation of disciples who lived later. But
today there may be a legacy of printed books, recorded tapes, televised film.
121
The foundation of every effort to better human life is not an organized movement but
the man who inspires it.
5. Self-Development
o General description
o What exactly is the goal?
o Unique person: unique path
o Knowing and working within one's limitations
o Stages of development
o Only whole person finds whole truth
o Attainments
o Dangers
5 - Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 5: Self-Development
Self-Development
General description
1
"How am I to start upon this process of true self-knowledge?" The answer begins with
this: first adopt the right attitude. Believe in the divinity of your deeper self. Stop
looking elsewhere for light, stop wandering hither and thither for power. Your
intelligence has become falsified through excessive attention to external living, hence
you are not even aware in which direction to look when you seek for the real Truth. You
are not even aware that all you need can be obtained by the power within, by the
omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Self. You have to change, first of all, the line
of thought and faith which pleads helplessly: "I am a weak man; I am unlikely to rise
any higher than my present level; I live in darkness and move amid opposing
environments that overwhelm me." Rather should you engrave on your heart the high
phrases: "I possess illimitable power within me; I can create a diviner life and truer
vision than I now possess." Do this and then surrender your body, your heart and mind
to the Infinite Power which sustains all. Strive to obey Its inward promptings and then
declare your readiness to accept whatsoever lot it assigns you. This is your challenge to
the gods and they will surely answer you. Your soul will be slowly or suddenly
liberated; your body will be granted a freer pathway through conditions. You may have
to be prepared for a few changes before the feet find rest, but always you shall find that
the Power in which you have placed an abiding trust does not go into default.
2
Because he believes that self-improvement, the bettering of man's nature, is quite
possible, he believes in the quest.
3
Each man should be himself, not represent and copy another man. But he should be his
best self, not his worst, his lower, his lesser. This calls for growth, aspiration, effort, on
his part. That is to say, it calls for a quest.
4
Who is willing to work upon himself? Who even feels that he has any duty to do so? Yet
this simple acknowledgment could lead to the discovery of God.
5
The student of true philosophy is more intent on growth than on study.
6
He who learns the essence of spiritual questing and the basic need in practical living,
learns that he must come into command of himself.
7
Out of his present self he is to evolve a better one and to actualize his higher
possibilities.
8
The divine spirit is always there in man, has always been there; but until he cultivates
his capacity to become aware of it, it might as well be non-existent for him.
9
The Overself is always there; it has never left us, but it has to be ardently, lovingly, and
subtly searched for.
10
He must carry the idea of "I" to a deeper level of identification.
11
Why is it that despite all the visible and touchable counter-attractions, despite the
innumerable failures and long years of fruitlessness, so many men have sought through
so many ages in so many lands for God, for what is utterly intangible, unnameable,
shapeless, unseen, and unheard? Because the simple but astonishing fact is that the
Overself, which is the presence of God in them, is part of their nature as human beings!
Mysticism is nothing more than the methodical attempt to wake up to this fact. The
"soul" which metaphysics points to in reasoning, mysticism establishes in experience.
We all need to feel the divine presence. Even the man who asserts that he does not is no
exception. For he indirectly finds it just the same in spite of himself but under limited
forms like aesthetic appreciation or Nature's inspiration. Even if all contemporary
mystics were to die out, even if not a single living man were to be interested in
mysticism, even if all mystical doctrines were to disappear from human memory and
written record, the logic of evolution would bring back both the teaching and the
practice. They are two of those historical necessities which are certain to be regained in
the course of humanity's cultural progress.
12
Because the Overself is already there within him in all its immutable sublimity, man has
not to develop it or perfect it. He has only to develop and perfect his ego until it
becomes like a polished mirror, held up to and reflecting the sacred attributes of the
Overself, and showing openly forth the divine qualities which had hitherto lain hidden
behind itself.
13
The distinction between his lower self and his higher self will slowly become clear to
him through inner experience and reflection thereon.
14
What, in a general way, is missing in his development as a human being moving on
from animality to a higher Awareness must be supplied.
15
By such meditation and study the mind returns, like a circle, upon itself, with the result
that when this movement is successfully completed, it knows itself in its deepest
divinest phase.
16
That which appears as the spiritual seeker engaged on a Quest is itself the spiritual self
that is being sought.
17
We have not to become divine for we are divine. We have, however, to think and do
what is divine.
18
This identification with the best Self in us is the ideal set for all men, to be realized
through long experience and much suffering or through accepting instruction, following
revelation, unfolding intuition, practising meditation, and living wisely. And this best
Self is not the most virtuous part of our character--though it may be one of the sources
of that virtue--but the deepest part of our being, underneath the thoughts which buzz
like bees and the emotions which express our egotism. A sublime stillness reigns in it.
There in that stillness, is our truest identity.
19
Each human being has a specific work to do--to express the uniqueness that is himself.
It can be delegated to no one else. In doing it, if he uses the opportunity aright, he may
be led to the great Uniqueness which is super-personal, beyond his ego and behind all
egos.
20
As he develops more intelligence and subtler perceptions, he will wake up from being
merely a conventional puppet and become a real person at last.
21
Even while he travels on this quest he should habitually remind himself of an easily
forgotten truth--that what he travels to is inside himself, is the very essence of himself.
22
Beneath your everyday self lies a giant--an unsuspected self of infinite possibilities.
23
Within is mastery, within is colossal power--but you have not yet touched it. However
little you have so far accomplished you can still do big things.
24
Our inmost being is a world of light, of joy, of power. To find it, and to hold ourselves in
it, is to become blessed by these things. That this is a scientific fact valid everywhere on
earth and not a debatable assumption, can be ascertained and proven if we will achieve
the required personal fitness. Without such fitness, we must be content with belief in the
theoretical statement or with passing glimpses.
25
Because there is something of God in me as the Overself, godlike qualities and
capacities are in me. I am essentially wise, powerful, loving; but to the extent that I
identify myself with the little ego, I obscure these grand qualities. I have the power to
work creatively on my environment as well as on the body in which I am housed, just as
the World-Mind, the Creative Spirit, works on the universe.
26
A man who wants to pursue this quest will have to become a different man--different
from what he was in the past because the old innate tendencies have to be replaced by
new ones, and different from other men because he must refuse to be led unresistingly
into the thoughtlessness, the irreverence, and the coarseness which pervade them.
27
It is not only a moral change that is called for but also a mental one, not only a physical
but also a metaphysical one.
28
There is no need to let go of his humanness in order to find his divine essence, but only
of its littleness, its satisfaction with trivial aims.
29
Such a man cannot rest satisfied with the littleness that sees nothing beyond its own
greed and desire. He will be haunted by higher ideals than the ordinary; he will want to
be finer, cleaner, better, and nobler human material than the common one.
30
If in the end we have to walk this earth on our own feet, why not begin to do so now?
Why continue to cultivate our weakness when we could cultivate our strength?
31
Where there is no attempt at self-improvement there is inevitable deterioration. Nature
does not let us stand still.
32
The application of these ideals is hard, but let no one deceive himself into thinking that
their nonapplication is much easier. Those who live without such life-purposes are
subject to troubles that could have been avoided and to afflictions of their own making.
33
It is easy to drift, as so many others do, through a life of self-indulgence. It is hard to try
continually to practise a life of self-control. Yet the deferred penalties of the first course
are painful, the consequent rewards of the second course are satisfying.
34
The gaining of such flashes has been accidental. It should stimulate us to know that if
we want to make it deliberate, there is a detailed technique, ready at hand for the
purpose. Sages who know how and why these flashes come have formulated the
technique for the benefit of those who want to elevate themselves.
35
From the first day that he began to tread this path, he automatically assumed the
responsibility of growth. Henceforth there had to be continuity of effort, an ever-
extending line of self-improvement.
36
"The prize will not be sent to you. You win it," says Emerson.
37
No one except the man himself can develop the needed qualities and practise them.
38
If he wishes to enter the portal of philosophy he will most likely begin with others, with
what philosophers have thought and taught; but in the end he must make a second
beginning--with himself. He will have to re-examine his own psyche, his own
personality, but from a detached position, standing far to one side. He will have to
decide each hour of each day how to apply the truth, gathered from books and teachers,
to the events, duties, occasions, and thoughts of that day.
39
Effort at self-improvement and self-development, consciously and deliberately made, is
an indispensable requirement. All talk of dispensing with it because one has surrendered
to a master is self-deceiving. All avoidance of it is self-disappointing in the end.
40
He cannot shift the burden of responsibility from off his shoulders so easily as that. It
remains inalienably his own by virtue of his membership in the human race.
41
He must begin to cease living at second hand, to help himself, to try his own powers, or
he will never grow.
42
The responsibility for his spiritual development lies squarely upon his own shoulders. In
trying to evade it, either by getting a master to carry it or by making a Short Path leap
into enlightenment, he indulges in an illusion.
43
The truth cannot be had by muttering a mantram ad infinitum although that may yield a
curious kind of transient relief from thoughts which chase one another. Nor may it be
had by paying one week's income to a guru.
44
If a man is determined to succeed in this enterprise and optimistically believes that he
will succeed, his efforts will increase and be strengthened, chances will be taken from
which he would otherwise shrink; and even if he falls short of his hopes, the going is
likely to be farther. What Ramana Maharshi said to me at our first meeting is apposite:
"That is the surest way to handicap oneself," he exclaimed, "this burdening of one's
mind with the fear of failure and the thought of one's failings. The greatest error of a
man is to think that he is weak by nature. . . . One can and must conquer."
45
This is the ideal, but to translate it into the actual, to assert it in the midst and against the
opposition of a grossly materialistic environment, calls for firmness and determination.
46
Let him not be satisfied with the amount of true knowledge he has got, nor with the
quality of personal character which he has developed. Let him press forward to the more
and better.
47
If, instead of merely daydreaming about it, or else attempting to obtain help from outer
sources, the student would listen to and be guided by the promptings of his inner self, he
would vastly hasten his progress on the Quest.
48
Social betterment is a good thing but it is not a substitute for self-betterment. Love of
one's neighbour is an excellent virtue but it cannot displace the best of all virtues, love
of the divine soul.
49
The man who is discontented with the world as he finds it and sets out to improve it,
must begin with himself. There is authority for this statement in the life-giving ideas of
Jesus as well as in the light-giving words of Gautama.
50
He has enough to do with the discovery and correction of his own deficiencies or
weaknesses, not to meddle in criticism of other people's.
51
He can best use his critical faculties by turning them on himself rather than on others.
52
Progress in self-evolvement on the Quest must be due to the individual's own efforts. It
can be encouraged or fostered only in proportion to the same individual's wishes and
needs. Other people, who are not interested in an inner search, are, at present, fulfilling
their own karmic need for a particular variety of experience; it is neither advisable nor
feasible to urge them to follow this path.
53
It is a worthwhile cause, this, and does not require us to interfere with others, to
propagandize them or to reform them. Rather does it ask us to do these things to
ourselves.
54
It is logical to assert that if every individual in a group is made better, the group of
which he is a part will be made better. And what is human society but such a group? The
best way to help it is to start with the individual who is under one's actual control--
oneself--and better him. Do that, and it will then be possible to apply oneself to the task
of bettering the other members of society, not only more easily but with less failure.
55
Few know where really to look for the truth. Most go for it to other men, to books, or to
churches. But the few who know the proper direction turn around and look in that place
where the truth is not only a living dynamic thing but is their own. And that is deep,
deep within themselves.
56
The Holy Land, flowing with milk and honey, is within us but the wilderness that we
have to cross before reaching it, is within us too.
57
The great sources of wisdom and truth, of virtue and serenity, are still within ourselves
as they ever have been. Mysticism is simply the art of turning inwards in order to find
them. Will, thought, and feeling are withdrawn from their habitual extroverted activities
and directed inwards in this subtle search.
58
If you are looking for truth, it is not enough to look only at your own country's, your
own religion's statement of it, nor just this century's. You need also to look elsewhere, to
heed the wiser voices of other centuries and to feel free to move East and West or into
b.c. as well as a.d. But above all these things you must look into the mystery of your
own consciousness. Uncover its layer after layer until you meet the Overself. All this is
included in the Quest.
59
Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus ask his followers to enter into a church but
he does ask them, by implication, to enter within themselves.
60
To the extent that they stop looking outside themselves for the help and support and
guidance they correctly feel they need, they will start looking inside and doing the
needful inner work to come into conscious awareness of the power waiting there, the
divine Overself. They themselves are inlets to it, never disconnected from it.
61
Why did Jesus warn men not to look for the Christ-self in the deserts or the mountain
caves? It was for the same reasons that he constantly told them to look for it within
themselves, and that he counselled them to be in the world but not of it.
62
Do not expect to find more truth and meaning in the world outside than you can find
inside yourself.
63
Although the Infinite Spirit exists everywhere and anywhere, the paradox is that It
cannot be found in that way before It has first been found in one's own heart. Yet it is
also true that to find It in its fullness in the self inside, we have to understand the nature
of the world outside.
64
He must start by believing that concealed somewhere within his mind there is the
intuition of truth.
65
The only man you need for this great work is yourself. Stop looking outside and look
within, for there is not only the material to work upon but also the god within to guide
you.
66
We must find in our own inner resources the way to the blessed life.
67
The man of the world drinks and dances; the mystic thinks and trances.
68
Many men cannot find the higher truth because they insist on looking for it where it is
not. They will not look within, hence they get someone else's idea of the truth. The other
person may be correct but since this is to be known only by being it, the discovery must
be made inside themselves.
69
He cannot know anyone else so well as himself. Why then try to know so many people
so superficially when he can know only himself so deeply and truly?
70
The goal can be reached by using the resources in his own soul.
71
He should create from within himself and by his own efforts the strength, the wisdom,
and the inspiration he needs.
72
The student must remember that success does not only come to him, it also comes from
him. The plan of the road to achievement and the driving power to propel him along it
must be found within himself.
73
Turning inward upon himself might be retiring to a fool's paradise or into a real one.
74
The truth will be given us: we shall not be left to starve for it. But it will be given
according to our capacity to receive it.
75
Ideally, we learn the wisdom of life best, easiest, and most from teachers, from
instruction by those who know the Way in its beginning and end. Actually, we have to
learn it by ourselves, by our own experience, by self-expression, all necessary and
valuable, suffering as well as joy.
76
Only when all of the mind--unconsciously evolved through the mineral, plant, animal,
and lower human kingdoms--enters on the quest, does it consciously enter upon the
development of its own consciousness.
77
This intellectual preparation and emotional purification is a task that strains man's
faculties to the extreme. Nobody therefore need expect it to be other than a lifetime's
task. Few even succeed in finishing it in a single lifetime--a whole series is required in
most cases. Nature has taken a very long time to bring man to his present state, so she is
in no hurry to complete his development in any particular reincarnation. Yet such is the
mystery of grace, that this is always a grand possibility, always the sublime X-factor in
every case. But the individual aspirant cannot afford to gamble with this chance, which,
after all, is a rare one. He must rely on his personal efforts, on his own strivings, more
than anything else, to bring him nearer to the desired goal.
78
The egoism which falsifies our true sense of being and the materialism which distorts
our true sense of reality are maladies which can hardly be cured by our own efforts.
Only by calling, in trust and love, on a higher power, whether it be embodied in another
man or in ourself, can their mesmeric spell ultimately be broken. Yet it is our own
efforts which first must initiate the cure.
79
Usually, it is by one's own efforts alone--but not excluding the possibility of Grace,
however--that one develops the needed objectivity with which to correctly study himself
and cultivate awareness.
80
To make progress inwardly is ultimately all that matters, everything else passes except
the fruit of our spiritual efforts.
81
Mysticism is the theory and practice of a technique whereby man seeks to establish
direct personal contact with spiritual being.
The question now arises: What is this Goal? It is the fulfilment of the Real Purpose of
life, as apart from the lower purposes of earning a livelihood, rearing a family, and so
forth. The aspirant will become fully Self-conscious--as aware of the divine Overself as
he now is of his earthly body. And this achievement will be perpetual, not just a matter
of occasional glimpses or fleeting intuitions. Even though the Quest has become more
difficult under modern conditions, it has not become impossible. The timeworn means
to this end must simply be brought up to date.
What are the means? They are thought, feeling, will, and intuition used in a special way.
This constitutes the fourfold path, or Quest.
85
He has chosen a path to which he has been led both by instinct and by experience. As he
tries to follow it, he will meet with all kinds of difficulties but he should not turn back.
Because the interrelation of outward karma to inner character is so close, he should
understand that these difficulties are linked up with his inner state, and that he begins to
solve them by removing the imperfection of that inner state. He must understand that,
although this goal is not easy to obtain, he must refuse to give up hope. The path is right
by itself, and in allying himself with it, he is allying himself with what is, after all, the
greatest force in the world.
86
How often have I heard, in talk or writing, that the philosophic requirements are set too
high and are beyond average human compliance. My answer is that time and patience
and work keep on pushing back the measure of what is possible to a man, that grace
may fitfully bless him if he sustains effort and aspiration or recognizes opportunity and
inspiration, and that these requirements are not set for immediate attainment but as an
ultimate goal to be striven for little by little and to give correct direction to his life.
"Hope on and hold on," I told Rom Landau at an outwardly dark and mentally depressed
moment of his life. He did!--and later found himself, his own peace, and became in turn
through his lectures and books a help to many fellow Christians.
87
The achievements of such personal self-sufficiency, of such detachment from the world
of agitations and desires, is, he will say, something entirely superhuman. "Why ask frail
mortals to look at such unclimbable peaks, such unattainable summits?" Philosophy
answers, "Yes, the peaks are high, the summits do cause us to strain our necks upwards.
But it is wrong to say that they are unclimbable. There is a way of climbing them, little
by little, under competent guidance, and that way is called the Quest. True, it involves
certain disciplines, but then, what is there in life worth getting which can be got without
paying some price in self-discipline for it? The aim of these disciplines is to secure a
better-controlled mind, a more virtuous life, and a more reverent fundamental mood."
88
Why is it that on the path we seem to meet students and aspirants only, not real teachers
or genuine adepts? Why is it that so few ever seem to realize their spiritual selves? The
answer is that the way is long and the game is hard, that the animal self is too strong and
the human ego too foolish, and that the struggle against our innate bestiality and
ignorance is too long-drawn and too beset with failures. This is what observation tells
us. It may be saddening but by being realistic we at least know what to expect, what is
the nature of the path we are undertaking, and what a tremendous patience we must
bring to it.
89
He has come to a clearer knowledge of what the Quest means and what it will demand
of him. The Quest of the divine soul has become his pole star. It was natural for him to
feel repelled at first by the idea of overcoming the ego but now he sees its desirability.
This will not mean giving it up in practical life however; for while he is in the flesh the
ideal is to find a proper balance between egoism and altruism because he needs both.
But because the individual's egoism is apt to be too big already and his altruism too
small, religious teachers have usually deliberately over-emphasized subduing the ego.
That is the moral side. On the philosophical side it is simply a matter of finding the
Overself and letting it rule the ego thenceforth. Thus the ego is not killed but put back in
its lower place. But first he has to become conscious of the Overself, he has to feel it as
a living presence, and he has to do this throughout the day and night, awake or asleep.
That is the goal. It is not really as hard as it sounds. For the divine self is always there
within him, it is never absent from him, not even for a second. It is the unfailing witness
of all his efforts and aspirations. When he has tried hard enough and long enough it will
suddenly shed all its Grace upon him.
90
It is not wrong to aspire toward happiness but, on the contrary, our human duty. Those
who, in the name of Spirituality, would turn life into a gloomy affair are entitled to their
opinion but they cannot justly be called philosophers.
91
Every man will be forced to realize his own sacredness in the end: then only will his
search for happiness find fulfilment.
92
Swami Vivekananda's works can be recommended as being authentic fruits of
realization that come close to the doctrine here discussed, albeit his path was not the
same. The Quest follows a double line of development: mind-stilling plus mind-
stimulating, each in its proper place. And the ultimate goal is to discover that there is
but one reality, of which all are but a part, that the separateness of the personal ego is
but superficial, and that Truth is evidenced by the consciousness of unity. The first fruit
of such discovery is necessarily the dedication of life to the service of all creatures, to
incessant service for universal welfare. Hence, in this light, the yogi who has withdrawn
into cave or forest is on a lower plane--good for him as a phase of his personal
development but useless to those who must live truth, the truth of unity.
93
To forget self but to remember Overself--it is as simple as that, and also as hard as that.
94
Not to find the Energy of the Spirit but the Spirit itself is the ultimate goal. Not its
powers or effects or qualities or attributes but the actuality of pure being. The aspirant is
not to stop short with any of these but to push on.
95
That which few men value and few men find is nevertheless the most worthwhile thing
for which to search. What is it? It is what once found cannot be lost, once seen must be
loved, and once felt awakens all that is best in a man.
96
It is not the knowing of the Overself that he is to get so much as the knowing that is the
Overself.
97
He comes at last to full consciousness of his inner being, his soul--in the correct sense
of a word that is not often understood and which is used by people without knowing
what they really mean.
98
If the distant goal of this quest is the discovery of true being, this does not exclude and
ought not to exclude the fullest growth of the human being, the widest realization of his
best capacities, making patent what is latent.
99
It is a prime purpose of the Quest to create a true individuality where, at present, there is
only a pseudo one. For those who are at the mercy of their automatic responses of
attraction or repulsion by environment, whose minds are molded by external influences
and educational suggestions, are not individuals in any real sense.
100
The lotus, that lovely Oriental flower, is much used as a symbol of the goal we have to
gain. It grows in mud but is not even spotted by it. It rests on water but is never even
stained by it. Its colour is pure white in striking contrast to the dirty surroundings which
are its home. So the disciple's inner life must be undefiled, unstained, and pure even
though his outer life is perforce carried on under the most materialistic surroundings or
among the most sensual people.
101
He has to seek for the mysterious essence of himself, which is something he touches at
rare, blessed, and unforgettable moments. It allures because it is also the Perfect, ever
sought but never found in the world outside.
102
The thirst for perfection is certainly present within us. This thirst is a pointer to its
eventual slaking. But there is no necessary implication that this will be attained whilst
we are in the flesh and on a level of existence where everything is doomed, as Buddha
points out, to decay and death. It is more likely to be done on a higher level where such
limitations could not exist. The perfection we seek and the immortality we hope for are
more likely to be mental rather than physical achievements. For all mystics are at least
agreed that there is such a level of untainted, purely spiritual being.
103
The fundamental task of man is first to free himself of animalist and egotist tyrannies,
and second, to evolve into awareness of his spiritual self.
104
The goal is to free himself from meshes and fetters, to bring all the forces of his being
under mastery.
105
The aim is to emancipate himself from earthly bondage, to redeem himself from animal
enslavement.
106
His quest can come to an end only when the unveiled Truth is seen, not in momentary
glimpses, but for the rest of his lifetime without a break.
107
We have to bring this awareness of the Overself as a permanent and perpetual feature
into active life.
108
It is perpetual abidance in the divine that is to be sought.
109
Many are satisfied if they can attain just a glimpse of the Overself. But a few are not.
They seek permanent abidance in the Overself, and that in the greatest possible degree.
110
But the main object of the quest is, after all, not these secondary betterments in bodily
health, nerve, character, self-control--welcome as they are--but the discovery of truth
and the living within the presence of the divine.
111
There is no such thing as an ever-receding goal on the Ultimate Path because there are
not ten or twenty ultimate truths. There is only a single, final truth. This is the objective
on this path and once he knows it he has attained the goal.
112
We must reflect in mind and act the true being of man.
113
If they think the goal of all this endeavour is merely to become frozen into a passivity
which never expresses itself and a contentment which never sees the miseries, the
disasters, or the tragedies of life, they are mistaken.
114
He seeks to fulfil a steady purpose which remains and is not an emotional froth which
abates and later vanishes.
115
There are two paths laid out for the attainment, according to the teaching of Sri Krishna
in the Bhagavad Gita. The first path is union with the Higher Self--not, as some believe,
with the Logos. But because the Higher Self is a ray from the Logos, it is as near as a
human being can get to it anyway. The second path has its ultimate goal in the Absolute,
or as I have named it in my last book, the Great Void. But neither path contradicts the
other, for the way to the second path lies through the first one. Therefore, there is no
cleavage in the practices. Both goals are equally desirable because both bring man into
touch with Reality. It would be quite proper for anyone to stop with the first one if he
wishes; but for those who appreciate the philosophic point of view, the second goal,
because it includes the first, is more desirable.(P)
116
What he chooses at the beginning of his quest will predetermine what he will become at
its end. And the choice is between self-centered escape and selfless activity. Both paths
will give him a great peace. Both will permit him to remain true to his inner call. But
the harder one will give something to suffering humanity also. A merely personal
salvation will not satisfy the philosophical aspirant.
117
Spiritual experiences that occur during adolescence are indications that he has
possibilities of travelling on the spiritual quest. But he must decide whether he prefers
abnormal occult experiences or the less dramatic, slower growth in the cultivation of his
divine soul. A beginner cannot mix the two goals safely. And he can expect to have the
help of an advanced mystic only if he seeks the higher goal.
118
He would be a rash man who promised everyone who embarked upon this quest definite
experiences of a mystical, occult, extraordinary, ecstatic, supernatural, or any such kind.
Such results sometimes come, sometimes not; but the persons who follow the regimes
or endure the disciplines chiefly in expectation of them may well be disappointed, may
even end in distrust in their teachers and teachings. A wiser type of aspirant will not
insist on such experiences but will understand that there are more important and more
lasting things.
119
Now, in middle-age, the errors of my published work have become discernible. Among
others, I have made the quest's goal far too near, its achievement far too easy, and the
quest itself far too short. The conception of that goal which I have formulated is true
enough, the reminder of a divine existence which I have given humanity is something to
flatter oneself about, but the way of realization calls for efforts so superhuman that few
people would ever have turned to it if my literary picture had been more faithfully
drawn.
120
In The Secret Path I presented the quest as shorter and easier than most people found it
to be; in The Spiritual Crisis of Man I presented it as harder and longer, in an effort to
redress the balance.
121
To improve and purify the ordinary self, to reach and realize the higher self, are clearly
the most difficult of tasks. To govern passions, quieten feelings, control thoughts and
develop intuitions, to direct tendencies, to remove complexes, and to remain steadfast in
sticking to the chosen path--is not all this a Herculean task?
122
The Art of Self-Revelation is no tea-table philosophy, shaped and polished to beguile
the tedium of the idle. Not many have attempted this path and fewer have completed it.
For few find the going easy. The fleshly world with its snares waits for us all, and the
escape is only for the starred ones.
123
It is to grow slowly into the discovery and realization of what he really is deep, deep
inside. Coming to know it is hard enough but impregnating the moment-to-moment
daily life with this knowledge is harder still.
124
The aspirant of today may be the adept of tomorrow, but the course is interminably
long, the goal reached only through innumerable experiences and efforts.
125
After the optimists have had their say and the Advaitins have preached, the hard fact
will be echoed back by experience: the goal is set so far, his powers so limited, that he
has to call on the quality of patience and make it his own.
126
So far as history tells us, full enlightenment cannot be got in the span of a single
lifetime, except among the notable few. Yet history has too many undiscovered secrets,
and enlightenment is too subtle a matter to pass correct judgement upon.
127
The attainment of realization of the Overself is extremely rare, and the aspirant should
not expect to do so in one limited lifetime. However, since its Grace is unpredictable, no
one can say that it is impossible in a particular case.
128
If the recent scientific computation of the earth's age as four thousand million years be
correct, we get some idea how long it takes to make a man. How much longer then to
make a superman?
129
That which is cheaply bought is often lightly esteemed. We shall rate Truth more highly
when we pay a high price for it.
130
Even a lifetime is not too long a period to devote toward gaining such a great objective.
What we give must be commensurate with what we want to receive. Moreover the effort
required, being worthy in itself and necessary to attain the full development of
manhood, is its own reward whether there is any other or not. Why then should anyone
relax his efforts or fall into despair because he has been able to make only little or
limited progress toward the goal?
131
The illumination is possible for all men because they are incarnate in human and not
animal forms. But all men are not willing to pay its price in mental control and
emotional subjugation.
132
If the reader finds such a task too fatiguing he should remember that the reward is
nothing less than enlightenment.
133
How few are those who have realized their aspiration to merge into the higher self. How
rare an event it is.
134
It is obvious from the rarity of its historic realization that this ideal was always too ice-
mantled a peak of perfection to be climbable by most men. Nevertheless we gain
nothing by ignoring it, and it is at least well to know towards what goal mankind is so
slowly and so unconsciously moving.
135
This truth may seem unsympathetic to natural human feelings, far too impersonal. It is
not for the multitude who demand from religion satisfaction of desires, consolation and
comfort, answers to prayers.
136
These adepts seems so immeasurably aloof from us, their attainments so superhuman,
that we may well ask of what use to most men is the offering of such a quest.
137
He feels intuitively that there is, or ought to be, some elusive element, principle,
purpose, or Deity behind all life and all Nature--but is it possible for a human being to
become acquainted with IT?
138
Such a goal may be unappealing to many, held by their attachments as they are; but it is
fascinating and alluring to a few, "old souls," much experienced after a long series of
earthly lives, whose values have been altered, whose glamours and illusions have been
eliminated. They feel like wanderers returning home.
139
The goal set up by this teaching may seem too foolish and perhaps even too fatuous for
persons who pride themselves on their reasonability and practicality. This judgement
may be the result of a slight acquaintance with the subject; it could not be the result of a
full and satisfactory knowledge of it.
140
If men tell you that the path is a mere figment of the imagination, they are welcome to
their belief. I, who have seen many men enter it and a few finish it, declare that the
difference between the beginning and the end of the path is the difference between a
slave and a master.
141
If the quest is presented as too difficult for everyone but the superman, an inferiority
complex is created and those who could get some help from some of its practices are
frightened away.
142
Jesus said that the way to eternal life is straight and narrow. He could have added that it
is also long and difficult. Yet the beginner should not let these things discourage him.
There is help within and without.
143
If the standard is set too high, love for it may not be strong enough to assist its
attainment.
144
If the ideal is too rigorous, its would-be followers will be too few.
145
The achievement may seem too hard but it is not impossible. The best guarantee of that
is the ever-presence within him of the divine soul itself.
146
We must take care not to fall into the depressing belief that this is to be attained by
masters only and that we cannot attain it.
147
It is unhelpful to put this goal on some Everest-like peak far beyond human climbing. If
many are called but few are chosen, it is their own weakness which defers the time of
being chosen. In the end, and with much patience, they too will find the way beyond the
struggle into peace.
148
It is not enough to find an ideal to help one's course in life: it should also be based on
truth, not fancy or falsity.
149
The aspiration must not only be a desirable one, it must also be attainable.
150
There is always a valid reason for disparity between the sought-for objective and the
actual performance. Those who begin hopefully and enthusiastically but find themselves
disappointed and without result, ought to look first to their understanding of the Quest
and correct it, to their picture of the Goal and redraw it.
151
If you want to find out why so many fail to reach the Quest's objective and so few
succeed in doing so, first find out what the Quest really is. Then you will understand
that the failures are not failures at all; that so large a project to change human nature and
human consciousness cannot be finished in a little time.
152
It is only of limited help to the modern man, living under very different conditions as he
is, to offer him the saint as a type to imitate or to quote the yogi as an example to follow.
153
He will not waste time in seeking the unattainable or striving for the impossible. For
truth, not self-deception, is his goal; humility, not arrogance, is his guide.
154
That the Overself not only is, but is attainable, is the premise and promise of true
philosophy.
155
If the goal is really unattainable, then the Quest is futile. If it is no more than
approachable then surely the Quest is well worthwhile. But in fact the goal is both
attainable and approachable.
156
Every man may awaken to the presence of Christ-consciousness within himself and thus
step out of the merely animal and nominally human existence. It will then be a divinely
human one.
157
That wonderful time when he can look straight into himself, through ego to Overself,
awaits his endeavours.
158
The goal is far-off, it is true; but nevertheless it is reachable by those who will make the
requisite effort to overcome self.
159
Despite all setbacks, the outcome of this endeavour can be only the fulfilment of hope.
For that is God's will.
160
Even if the goal seems too far off, the attainment too high up for their limited capacities,
even if it seems that one would have to be far better than ordinary to have any chance at
all, that does not mean they should not embark on this quest. For even if they are able to
travel only a modest part of the way the efforts involved are still well worthwhile.
161
What if the goal seems too distant or the climb too steep? Do as much or as little as you
can to advance. If you lack the strength to go all the way, then go some of the way. Your
spiritual longings and labours will influence the nature of your next body and the
conditions of your next incarnation. Nothing will be lost. Higher capacities and more
favourable circumstances will then be yours if you have deserved them. Every virtue
deliberately cultivated leads to a pleasanter rebirth. Every weakness remedied leads to
the cancellation of an unpleasant one.
162
If the fullest degree of perfection seems so far off as to depress him, the first degree is
often so near that it should cheer him.
163
Few imagine their capacity extends to such a lofty attainment and so few seek it. Most
of those who engage on this quest have a modest desire--to get somewhere along the
way where they have more control over their mind and life than their unsatisfactory
present condition affords.
164
Let us not pretend to the Perfect or the hope of its attainment. But we can have the Ideal
and follow it.
165
What man will set out on a task which he can never hope to accomplish? It is too much
to expect the average seeker to become a mahatma. We portray the nature of this quest
not because we hold such a vain expectation but because we believe in the value of right
direction and in the creative power of the Ideal. The general direction of his thoughts
and deeds--rather than those thoughts and deeds themselves--as well as the ideal he
most habitually contemplates, is what is most important and most significant in his life.
166
His first need is to choose a general goal, not necessarily an exact point but enough to
orient himself, to give him a direction.
167
An ideal helps to hold a man back from his weaknesses, a standard gives him indirectly
a kind of support as well as, directly, guidance.
168
If he knew at the beginning that it was so far and so long, and so troubled a journey,
would he have embarked on the quest at all? That depends on the nature of the man
himself, on the nature of his impelling motive, and on the strength behind it.
169
It is a truth which he must bring to life by his own personal experience.
170
If there were no possibility of finding one's way from this body-prisoned, time-encased
condition, then no one would ever have become self-realized, and all preaching of
religion and teaching of philosophy would have been futile. But we know from history
and biography that such achievement has been experienced in all parts of the world and
in all centuries, so that no one should give up hope.
171
Are the quest's goals worth what he has to pay for them? Is it even worth embarking on
if he remembers how few seem to reach those goals? Time alone can show him that no
price is too high and that right direction is itself sufficient reward.
172
Different terms can be used to label this unique attainment. It is insight, awakening,
enlightenment. It is Being, Truth, Consciousness. It is Discrimination between the Seer
and the Seen. It is awareness of That Which Is. It is the Practice of the Presence of God.
It is the Discovery of Timelessness. All these words tell us something but they all fall
short and do not tell us enough. In fact they are only hints for farther they cannot go: it
is not on their level at all since it is the Touch of the Untouchable. But never mind; just
play with such ideas if you care too. Ruminate and move among them. Put your heart as
well as head into the game. Who knows one day what may happen? Perhaps if you
become still enough you too may know--as the Bible suggests.
173
Thinking which is fact-grounded, experience-based, and correct; living which is wise,
balanced, and good; meditation which goes deeper and deeper--these are some of our
basic needs.
174
Peace of mind can be enjoyed in this world: there is no need to wait for passage to the
next one.
175
The ultimate goal is for us to live from the Overself not from the ego.
176
The impossibility of realizing the Bodhisattva ideal alone shows it was not meant to be
taken literally. For not only would the Bodhisattva have to wait until the two billion
inhabitants presently occupying this planet had been saved, but what of the others who
would have been added to this number by that time? The Bodhisattva ideal is
supposedly set up in contrast with that of the Pratyeka Buddha, who is alleged to seek
his own welfare alone.
177
That life will reach some higher end and thus justify all the fret and toil is more than a
comforting belief: it is also an offering of the highest Reason, the revelation of highest
experience.
178
A surgeon we know once wrote to us that the goal seemed so distant, the way so long,
the labour so arduous, that he felt inclined to abandon the quest altogether as something
beyond ordinary human reach. Our reply to him was that because a position could not
be captured in its entirety that was no reason for hesitating to make a start to capture
some of it.
Each case is different, because each person has a different heredity, temperament,
character, environment, and living habits. Therefore these general principles must be
adapted to, and fitted in with, that person's particular condition.
180
Just as there is not a single radius only from the centre of a circle to its circumference
but countless ones, so there is not a single path only from man to God but as many paths
as there are men. Each has to find the way most appropriate to him, to the meaning and
experience of truth.
181
There are as many ways to union with the Overself as there are human beings. The
orthodox, the conventional, and the traditional ways can claim exclusiveness or
monopoly only by imperilling truth.
182
It is an unnecessary self-limitation to believe that there is only a single path to
enlightenment, only a single teaching worth following. Persons who believe or feel
themselves to be unable to understand subtle metaphysics can turn to a simple
devotional path.
183
There is no one particular type of aspirant to mystical or philosophical enlightenment.
Taken as a whole, aspirants are a mixed and varied lot in their starting points,
personalities, motives, and allegiances. They vary in individuality very widely, have
different needs, circumstances, opportunities, outlooks, and possibilities.
184
We are all built by Nature in different ways: no two palms, no two thumbprints, no two
persons are exactly alike.
185
The seekers are to be found at different levels and are attracted by different approaches
according to their different intellectual development, emotional temperaments, moral
capacities, and intuitional sensitivity.
186
The uniqueness of each person is emphasized by the differences which separate him
from his fellows.
187
In one's search for Truth he may have progressed through orthodox Christianity,
Christian Science, and Spiritualism--but, eventually, the Quest will lead him away from
limited, organized public approaches, and bring him to the unrestricted freedom of the
Presence of the Overself. Other movements, such as those mentioned, may be useful to
beginners; but when some progress has been made, the path necessarily opens onto the
Quest where it becomes unlimited, individual, and private.
188
All of us have to travel in the same broad direction if we would rise from the lower to
the higher grades of being. But the way in which we shall travel the Way is essentially a
personal one. All of us must obey its general rules, but no two seekers can apply them
precisely alike.
189
The philosophic approach does not limit the seeker rigidly to a single specific
technique. While it asks him to follow the basic path and fulfil the fundamental
requirements which all beginners must follow, it also points out that this is only a
general preparation. A point will be reached when he is ready for more advanced work,
and when the personal characteristics and circumstances which are particularly his own
must be brought in for adjustment if he is to receive the greatest benefit. No two seekers
and the surrounding conditions are ever exactly alike and, at a certain stage, what is
helpful to one will be time-wasting to another.
190
Each man is unique so each quest must be unique too. Everyone must find, in the end,
his own path through his own life. All attempts to copy someone else, however reputed,
will fail to lead him to self-realization although they may advance him to a certain
point.
191
Each seeker must find out his own path, his own technique for himself. Who else has
the right or the capacity to do it for him?
192
We prefer to follow the creative rather than the compulsive way, to help men find their
own way rather than force them to travel our way. And this can only be done by starting
with the roots, with the ideas they hold, and the attitudes which dominate them.
193
There are too many differences in individual aspirants to allow a broad general
technique to suit them all. A guide who can give a personal prescription is helpful, but
even in his absence the aspirant can intelligently put together the fragments which will
best help him.
194
Let him walk forward slowly or quickly, as suits him best, and also in his own way,
again as suits his individuality which he has fashioned through the reincarnations to its
present image and from which he has to begin and proceed farther.
195
There are not only widely different stages of evolutionary growth for every human
being but also widely different types of human beings within each stage. Hence a single
technique cannot possibly cover the spiritual needs of all humanity. The seeker should
find the one that suits his natural aptitude as he should find the teacher who is most in
inward affinity with him.
196
Let him take up whatever path is most convenient to his personal circumstances and
individual character and not force himself into one utterly unsuited to both, merely
because it has proven right for other people.
197
There is no single universal rule for all men: their outer circumstances and inner
conditions, their historical background and geographical locality, their karmic destiny
and evolutionary need, their differences in competence, render it unwise, unfair, and
impracticable to write a single prescription for them.
198
Again and again one observes that the technique, exercise, method, or rule which brings
good results for one person fails to do so for another. It is absurd to make a single
uniform prescription and expect all persons to get a single uniform result from it. What
has been done here is to give some of the best ones and let each reader find out what
suits him most, not what suits his friend or another reader most.
199
It is a common error, among the pious and even among the mystics, to believe that one
path alone--theirs--is the best. This may be quite correct in the case of each person, but
it may not necessarily be correct for others, and even then it is only correct for a period
or at most a number of lifetimes. How often have men outgrown their former selves and
taken to new paths? And how different are the intellectual moral and temperamental
equipments of different persons? It is in practice, as in theory, not possible to tie
everyone down to a single specific path and certainly not advisable.
200
Men are differently constituted. There are a dozen main types and innumerable
subdivisions within each type. It is not possible for a single spiritual approach to suit
them all.
201
No one reaches the world of truth through any other path than his own, the one which
his individual nature fits him for. Someone else's help can at best improve his condition
and prepare his mind but cannot take him into truth. Those cases which seem to
contradict this statement are cases either of self-deception or of illusion. Too often time
spent on these chalked-out paths is time wasted.
202
It would be an error to try to make his own any spiritual path which, or teacher who,
was not so in fact. Such an attempt might maintain itself for a time but could not escape
being brought to an end when the false position to which it would lead became
intolerable.
203
The human being will bring about its own redemption, if only we would allow it to do
so. But instead we hypnotize the mind with ideas that may suit other persons but are
unsuited to us, we practise techniques that warp our proper development, we follow
leaders who know only the way they have themselves walked and who insist on
crowding all seekers on it regardless of suitability, and we join groups which obstruct
our special line of natural growth.
204
Each man's path is his own unique one, with its own experiences. Some are shared in
common with all other seekers but others are not; they remain peculiar to himself.
Therefore a part--whether large or small--of what he has to do cannot be prescribed by
another person, be he guru or not. In the groups, organizations, schools, there is too
much rigidity in the instruction, the rules, and the expectancy aroused of what should
happen at each stage. This is too tight a program. It brings confusion and frustration and
does not correspond to the actual situation which an independent observer finds among
these circles.
205
The individual uniqueness of each aspirant cries out to have its special needs attended
to, but suggestion from outside or mesmerism from authority causes him to approach
the Quest with fixed opinions as to what should be done. Others are being allowed to
mold him instead of letting the inner voice do so, using their contributions solely to
carry out or to supplement its guidance.
206
Every man's individual life-path is unique. It may not be to his best interests to conform
to a technique imposed upon him by another man or to confine his efforts to a pattern
which has suited others. What may be right for another man who is at a different stage
of development may be wrong for the aspirant.
207
To deny his individuality is to destroy his creative mind.
208
The Bhagavad Gita not only emphasizes the need of solitude for practising yoga but
also warns us that the duty, the path, the way of life of other men may be full of danger
to us. Thus it also preaches the need of individualism.
209
There is no single path to enlightenment. Yoga has no monopoly. Life itself is the great
enlightener. I met a man once who, after the shock of hearing his wife tell him that she
had ceased to love him, that she had for some time had a secret lover, and that she
requested a divorce so as to be able to marry him, felt a collapse of all his hitherto
confidently held values and beliefs. For some days he was so affected that he could not
eat. But his mind by then had become so extraordinarily lucid concerning these matters
and himself, that he experienced moments of truth. Through them he came into a great
peace and understanding, an inner change. What was the morning sun which awakened
him? He did no yogic exercises, entered no churches, was too intent on his worldly
business to read spiritual books. This brings me back to the theme: do not submit to the
pressure of those who say there is only a single way to salvation (the way they follow or
teach) do not let the mind be trammelled or narrowed. The truth is that the ways are
many, are spread out in all directions, are individual.
210
From the clues, hints, and indications which search and experience give us, we learn in
the end what is the true way to the God within us.
211
The quest is too individual a matter to fit everyone in the same way, like a ready-made
suit of clothes. Each man has his own life-problems to consider and surmount. In trying
to do so wisely nobly and honestly he does precisely what the quest calls for from him
at the time.
212
Each quest thus has its own character and its own personality. This it shapes by the act
of dedicating itself to the incorruptible integrity of the higher life.
213
Arnold Toynbee found his spiritual path in his study and work in history. It revealed to
him, he says, the presence of God as others have found it through prayer and religion.
The inner characteristics of men are various and so are the forms which the quest takes
for them.
214
The course of each quester is not necessarily invariable nor are his experiences always
inevitable.
215
The journey from anticipation to realization is a long one. On this Quest the curiosity to
know what lies ahead can never be satisfied with perfect correctness because it must
necessarily differ with different individuals.
216
Changes of circumstances which bring uncertainty of the future will not frighten him.
They will interest him. He will seek to discover if they point the way to an incoming of
new forces of experience necessary for his further development.
217
All human beings differ in some respects and in mind as well as in body. Each is
unique. Each needs to find his own individual path. For in each aspirant there exists a
certain direction, tendency, capacity, attribute, or gift along which line the possibility of
his spiritual development can open up more quickly, freely, and easily than along any
other. It is on this line that he should concentrate more effort and so take advantage of
what Nature has given him. But to detect and recognize what is his best potentiality
requires exploration and search, not only by his ordinary faculties but also and
especially by his more sensitive and intuitive ones. It will not be found all at once but
only after much groping around and feeling his way. Time is needed because this hidden
possibility does not exist at the surface level. The earth which surrounds this gem
obscures its whereabouts. If he is in a hurry and insists on a premature discovery instead
of keeping up the search, he will identify the wrong stone. Once having found it let him
stay with it as often and as long as he can.
218
There is a way suited to the particular individuality of each separate person, which will
bring out all his spiritual possibilities as no other way could.
219
The purpose of all paths being to bring the traveller to the same single destination--
union with God--any path which either fulfils this purpose or partially helps to do so, is
acceptable.
220
He may work toward enlightenment and inner freedom, to the aspiration which draws
him most.
221
Whatever helps consciousness come nearer to high moods is a useful spiritual path to
someone.
222
He should take any approach which appeals to him, if it is morally worthy, and try to
use what he can of it.
223
The claims that these simpler paths like devotion or repeating a declaration can lead to
the goal, are neither true nor untrue. For they lead to the philosophic path which, in its
own turn, leads directly to the goal.
224
It is misleading to pick out any one way to the Overself and label it the best, or worse
still, the only way. It is unfair to compare the merits of different ways. For the truth is
that firstly each has a contribution to make, and finally each individual aspirant has his
own special way.
225
Several different methods of spiritual development have been offered to humanity.
Some have more merit than others and some are more effective than others. But so
much depends on the particular needs and status of each person, that the value of a
method cannot be generalized with fairness.
226
Is there a single teacher, prophet, messenger, or saint who has been universally
acclaimed and universally followed? For that to be, all mankind would need the same
outer background and inner status.
227
Great or small there are certain differences between all persons. They cannot all pursue
the same ways, therefore we should let others take a different view in religion from
ourselves. They vary so widely that it is an adventure for society if there exists as great
a diversity of approaches as possible--they are thus better able to suit particular needs.
Why should anyone be afraid of diversity in religious views, of variety in religious
practices? Let heresies multiply! Let the sects flourish! For out of all this free
competition, the seeker has a better chance to find truth.
228
The modern seeker is fortunate in this: that he has a wealth of teachings to choose
from--or by which to be bewildered.
229
We must not only acknowledge the differences between men but respect them.
Consequently we must accept the fact of variations in responsive capacity and not
demand that all should think alike, believe alike, behave alike.
230
What is too much for one individual is too little for another. No universally applicable
prescription can be given to suit everyone alike.
231
All these paths should converge towards one another, as all must merge in the central
point in the end.
232
However different personal reactions will necessarily be with every individual seeker,
there will still remain certain experiences, requirements, and conditions--and these are
the most important ones--along his path which must be the same for every other seeker
too.
233
Each man's approach must inevitably be individualistic yet each will also share in
common all the essentials which constitute the Quest.
234
Whether a man is a Zionist or a Zennist, whether he seeks the Christian Salvation or the
Japanese Satori, the fundamental approach is more or less the same.
235
There is no cut and dried system or method which can be guaranteed to work
successfully in every case. But there are suggestions, hints, ideas, which have been
culled from the personal experiences of a widely varied, world-spread number of
masters and aspirants.
236
Since each man's path is peculiarly an individual one, no book can guide all his steps. A
book may help him through some situations, inform him about the general course of
inner development, and warn him against the probable mistakes and chief pitfalls.
237
Each man has to strive for this higher consciousness in his own way. Each path to it is
unique. But at the same time he may profitably avail himself of the general instruction
contained in writings like the present one.
The answer is that nobody is asked to undertake more than lies within his strength or
circumstances. There is room here for those with humble aims who do not feel equal to
more than the slightest philosophic effort. Let them study these doctrines just a little
where possible, but where even this is not possible let them accept these teachings on
simple faith alone. Let them absorb a few leading tenets which make special appeal to
them or which are more easily understandable by them than others. Let them practise a
few minutes' meditation only once or twice weekly, if they do not find the time or
tendency to practise more. Let them keep in only occasional touch by letter or otherwise
with someone who represents in himself a definite personal attainment which, although
beyond their own reach, is not beyond their own veneration. Thus they take the first step
to establish right tendencies. If however they are unable to do any of these things, let
them not despair. There still remains the path of occasional service. Let them give from
time to time, as suits their capacity or convenience, a little help in kind or toil or coin to
those who are themselves struggling against great odds to enlighten a world sorrow-
struck through ignorance. For thus they will earn a gift of glad remembrance and
internal notice whose unique value will be out of all proportion to what is offered. The
karmic benefit of such offering will return to them, and even if it be long deferred they
will have the intangible satisfaction which comes from all service placed on the
Overself's altar.
250
If he is unable to gather enough strength to seek the Truth, then let him seek it for the
sake of the services it can render to him.
251
Although hardly any seeker can perfect himself in the quest's varied requirements, all
seekers can develop something of each needed quality.
252
The change in thinking and living habits must theoretically be a total one if the
regeneration sought is to be that also. But the compulsions of earning a livelihood,
fitting into the local community, and adjusting to family opposition make this
impossible in all but exceptional cases. Men who have to take these actualities into their
consideration in practice attempt to compromise with hard necessity and present
environment. This does not mean that they discard the truth--they must indeed keep it
loyally as the Ideal--but that they relate it to the prevailing conditions and somehow
arrive at some kind of a reconciliation between the two. Nor does it mean that the
teaching is impractical, for the few exceptions already mentioned are able to put it into
practice a hundred percent simply because they are willing and able to pay the heavy
price of isolation for doing so. It means that although the teaching is adequate to all
circumstances, its devotees are unwilling to court the extra suffering and struggle
involved in fighting the insanity and tension of those existing circumstances. The latter
tend to promote materialism and are best suited to a materialistic way of thinking and
living. Those who, while reading its true character aright, submit to it and refuse to
withdraw from it, are entitled to do so--if at the same time they have the clear
understanding that the higher illuminations, as well as the permanent one, will have to
remain inaccessible to them. Is there not enough to do in climbing to the lesser ones,
and are they not sufficiently glorious and rewarding?
253
There are many who are not seeking for the quickest attainment of the highest goal.
They feel, quite pardonably, that the demands of training for it are too great for their
modest equipment. But they are seeking for occasional inspiration and they would be
content with just a few glimpses during their lifetime. Although these people are not
fully committed to the Quest, they are in general sympathetic with it.
254
If he feels that rising to a higher level of consciousness would be too much for him, then
he could simply try to become a better man.
255
It is some kind of a victory over self for a man to be willing to live without distress if he
has to live within his limitations.
256
Those who feel that there are too many evils in the contemporary ways of living and of
earning a livelihood, who sincerely deplore these evils, nevertheless often feel also that
there is little or nothing they can do about it until society as a whole develops new and
better ways. But this is only a first look at their situation; it reveals the appearance of it
but not the reality. Do they really need to wait until the unlikely event of a wholesale
and voluntary amendment takes place all around them? For the challenge today, as will
be made clear in this book's later course, is not a social but an individual one. More men
are free to take the first steps towards their own liberation from these evils than they
usually realize. When their caution becomes excessive, it also becomes a vice. It may
prevent them from making mistakes, but it also prevents them from doing anything at
all--leading, in fact, to a kind of inertia. Even if they cannot do more, they can make a
start to apply new ideals and then see what happens.
257
Is the Quest nothing but an endless adventure and never to become a final achievement?
Are its goals too high for frail humans, its exercises too difficult for feeble ones? The
historic fact that men have lived who have turned its adventure into its achievement puts
an end to such pessimism. If, knowing and accepting our limitations, we object that this
cannot possibly be done in a single lifetime, the answer is, "Then do what you can in the
present lifetime, and there will be that much less to be done in the next lifetime."
258
When a man has the right stuff in him, all he needs is just opportunity, and nothing else.
If he possesses a sufficient degree of talent plus the determination to succeed, there is no
stage so humble that it cannot be made a jumping-off ground to better things.
259
The disciple's quest must begin with his own simple specific needs, not with
complicated generalities.
260
He must begin with what he is and where he is: that's the starting point. After looking at
the goal, and the direction leading to it, he looks for the next step.
261
Do not let the past hold you down. Do not let dust-laden memories keep you down.
Make today a fresh day, a new beginning.
262
He can begin this inner work with whatever capacities he has now, from wherever he is
now on life's road. There is no time that is not the right time, no place that is not the
right place, no circumstances which cannot be put to use in some way. For there are
lessons to be learnt everywhere, meanings to be gleaned in all experiences; spiritual
tests and opportunities of the most varied kinds can be found in the most unlikely
situations, the most unspiritual environments.
263
Time is needed to bring maturity to his development; the years must pass before his
understanding is complete enough to stand on its own supports.
264
We must recognize what is not always recognized, that the growth of mind and
character takes time, just as the growth of trunk and limb takes time. A man does not
begin to mature and become what he is likely to be until he is past thirty.
265
The young man who has the wisdom to devote some of his abundant energies to this
quest will one day be the envy of the old man who would devote only his slackened
forces and shortened days to it.
266
It is entirely for the seeker to set his own rate of progress. Even the man who is
interested only in theoretical discussion thereby, and to that extent, promotes his own
good. If through inclination or circumstances he prefers to let his aspirations remain
only at the level of reading and discussion, that at least is better than being entirely
uninterested in them. It will be for him to decide whether to endeavour to obtain the
fullest realization of his aspirations in practical life. There is room for both classes on
this Quest.
267
He should not be discouraged because others have gone ahead on the path more quickly
than he, any more than he should be gratified because some have gone ahead more
slowly than he, for the fact is that the goal he seeks is already within his grasp. He is the
Overself that he seeks to unite with, and the time it seems to take to realize this is itself
an illusion of the mind. Let him, therefore, go forward at his own rate and within the
limits of his own strength, leaving the result in the hands of God.
268
If they impose on themselves an impossible ideal, an unattainable standard, they must
expect the sense of frustration that will overtake them later.
269
It is better that an aspirant should know his limitations now than that, failing to do so, he
should know tragic disappointments and unutterable despair later. It is better in such a
case that he should realize that he is engaged on a long search whose end he cannot
reach in this incarnation.
270
How can the naïve inexperienced beginner fail to commit errors and neglect
precautions; how can he not be deceived by his own imaginations or puzzled by the
contradictions and paradoxes which beset this path?
271
The newly awakened aspirant should search for clues without losing his balance or
overreaching new enthusiasm.
272
Of what use is it to reproach himself again and again for being what he is? How could
he have been otherwise, given his heredity, environment, and history?
273
The quest says he is not so helpless as he thinks he is. Why give himself up so
unresistingly to the tendencies he finds in his heart, to the thoughts he finds in his mind,
to the inward dominion of his possessions and passions? Why be so soft-willed as to
refrain from making any effort at all on the plea that he must accept himself as he finds
himself?
274
What he cannot do in the beginning, he may be able to do in the middle of his journey.
He should not let misgivings about his capacity to travel far stop him from travelling at
all.
275
Those who already possess a flair for mysticism will naturally advance more easily and
more quickly than those who do not. But that is no reason for the unmystical to adopt a
defeatist attitude and negate the quest altogether.
276
His weaknesses may come in the way of his seeking, yet he still remains an authentic
seeker.
277
The quest would have to be entered with a realization of all its complexity and with a
comprehension that his good intentions could be frustrated by adverse circumstances if
he lets his thoughts about them become negative.
278
A man needs to know his limitations and to accept them. But he need not accept them as
absolutes. There is always the mysterious X-factor, the second wind, the untapped
unpredictable resources.
279
He should fit his aspiration to his estimated capacity but, in order not to miss unknown
possibilities which might yet emerge to the surface, he should do so loosely and not
rigidly.
280
From a long-range point of view, is anyone really "lost"? It is sometimes consoling to
remember that we have Eternity before us, and we can only do what we are capable of
at a given time.
281
No matter what the personal circumstances of a man may be, no matter whether he be
rich or poor, well or ill, old or young, educated or illiterate, there is no point in his life
where some part at least of the quest may not be introduced.
282
Would they have done better to have stayed at home, rather than to have gone off
looking for gurus in the East? The answer must vary from seeker to seeker.
283
It is true that enlightenment is to be found wherever it is earnestly sought, and not in
any special place such as India. However, one's own desires and needs will provide him
with a source of direction; and it may be that these will indicate that one's individual
progress may be hastened or better served by a journey to some particular location.
284
Why do seeking souls run off to India, and now to Japan, as they ran off to Europe in
Emerson's time? If they had a less confused conception of the Overself, a clearer idea of
what they sought, none of them would feel that he had to go to this or that country,
place, person. But the tendencies inherited from former births and pushing him one way
or pulling him toward somewhere else, set up this urge to move away and meet new
experience, new people, perhaps new masters. In particular, they draw him back to the
scene of previous lives which powerfully affected his spiritual seeking. This is attractive
to him, perhaps even emotionally romantic, but it gives him nothing really that he has
not in fact had before.
285
For many years I was enthralled with the spiritual glamour of India. The need to go
there became a strong one, and in the end I surrendered to it. I learnt what the
grasshopping tourist never learns; saw what the professional observer rarely sees; for
both tourist and journalist usually lack the aspiration, the patience, and the preparations
required to search for and discover what is really the best in any Oriental country.
I found much in that country that was of great interest and greater value, but I did not
find the fulfilment of my Quest. That did not come to me until I was back again in the
other hemisphere. Indeed, the Cosmic Vision, which revealed the Presence of Infinite
Intelligence throughout life, throughout the universe and throughout history, which
explained so many of the Higher Laws to me, came incongruously enough while I was
sitting in a hotel room in Chicago. With this humbling insight, the need to go to India
disappeared. And I then saw that it was really an ancient complex--a kind of auto-
suggestion--inherited from my own far, reincarnatory past. Indeed, I found out that if I
had remained loyal to the inward direction I had originally travelled, I need never have
gone to India at all, nor to those other Asiatic countries where I sought for Truth. What I
needed could be very well found within myself. But, I had accepted the suggestions out
of my past as well as out of the lips and writings of other persons. And so I deviated
from the inward way. The shortcut, which the journeys to Asia offered, turned out to be
a long way, for I wandered over other men's roads, and, in the end, had to return, as we
all have, to my own road. Indeed, there was nowhere else to go, and my Quest ended
there.
The other ways were not without their usefulness and helpfulness, of course, but they
lost that value the moment they were turned into substitutes for the interior way, which
is unique and without a second because each one of us is unique. Each gets his own
special experience of life, makes his own special set of contacts with other persons, and
meets his own particular destiny. In his reactions to and dealings with all this, he is
really reacting to and dealing with himself. He is showing quarrelsomeness, or trying to
conquer it; he is losing himself in the day's activity, or saving himself from it in a half-
hour retreat. He is letting negative thoughts or feelings stay in his heart, or trying to
drive them out of it. He is practising a larger relationship and a kindlier attitude toward
those he encounters in his day-to-day business, or he is failing to recognize why they--
and not others who are quite different--have been put into his path by the Infinite
Intelligence. His environment is really a testing-place and a disciplinary school.
And so I come back to the statement that going to India, or going to any other place, in
quest of spiritual enlightenment is not so important as going inside one's self, and
discovering Who one is. Moreover, if some have gone to India to look for an incarnate
Master, others have gone to Palestine to look for a disincarnate one. There they lingered
at the holy places, the sacred monuments, the historic ground where Jesus walked and
talked. But, the attempts of both kinds of seekers bear real fruit only as and when they
lead to the Seeking Within, for the indwelling Master, in the one case, or the indwelling
Christ in the other. Yet, this final search the seeker could have begun anyway without
leaving home. Indeed, Ramana Maharshi himself once said aloud: "Had I known how
easy it was, I would never have gone away from home."
286
The question of how far he would be prepared to travel in this quest has no geographical
reference. It is a metaphorical one and refers only to the time he can give each day to
the exercises, studies, and devotions, as well as to the moral ideals he can bring himself
to pursue. He is not asked for more than he feels he can humanly give under his present
circumstances and responsibilities. As for going to India or elsewhere, that is
unnecessary and even inadvisable. One of the greatest Western mystics I ever knew
spent every day in the city of London, where he had a business to manage. He did his
job and made a success of it, stuck to his ideals and became spiritually "aware." He was
indeed an adept at meditation but he had never set foot in the Orient. The seeker has
indeed not very far to travel. Four hundred years ago Sebastian Franck, a German who
had attained the full spiritual realization, wrote: "We do not need to cross the sea to find
Him--the Word is nigh thee, is in thy heart."
287
The belief that we have to travel to far places for the light of Truth is not really true but
our own feebleness may have to make it true. As soon as we settle down in hope and
confidence to discover the deeper forces within ourselves they begin to become active.
288
We delude ourselves with the dream that we are travelling to Italy or to Austria; it is not
we who are travelling, but the ship and the train. We only travel when our souls move
out of their narrow encasements and seek a larger life. And that can happen anywhere: it
might be at our own familiar fireside at the bidding of an illumined book; it might come,
of course, with our first view of the Himalaya Mountains. But merely to move our
bodies from one place to a distant one, without a corresponding movement of the soul,
is not travel; it is dissipation.
289
How many, of late years, have travelled on "the ashram circuit"! How much have I, and
some friends, contributed toward this result! Yet in the end, to what does it all add up?
Let an earlier president of the respected Ramakrishna Mission, head of the Ramakrishna
Order of Monks, and abbot of Belur Monastery answer, in the warning which he gave
an American lady who was enthusiastically going from one Hindu ashram to another,
spending a few days at each during a six-week visit to India. Said Swami Saradananda
with a large smile: "Remember, what is within you is everywhere. What is not, is
nowhere." Do not these words admonish his visitor that there is nothing free in the
universe, that she cannot get something for nothing, that no "guru" can give her what
she herself must work for and provide, and that no seeker will be able to bring into close
inner relationship with himself any spiritual master who is too far from, or too high
above, his own range of development? When an Indian of such authority and experience
makes this statement to such seekers, his words ought to be well weighed against those
which have been written, pronounced, or circulated by those who do not know better.
290
Where should a man go in order to start on this Quest? Should he travel to the Orient?
Can it be followed only in the Near East, the Middle East, or the Far East? The answer
is that such a journey is quite unnecessary. Let him start in the land where he is living,
where destiny has put him. But if he need not move from one country to another for the
purposes of the Quest he may find it helpful to move for the purposes of a single
department of the Quest--that is, meditation--from the noise and bustle of city life to the
quiet and calmness of country life.
291
To those who want to travel to India or elsewhere in search of salvation, or of a master
who shall lead them to it, the question must be asked, "Can you not see that if you take
yourself there you will still have to cope with your ego there as here? Look deeper into
your own heart, for that is where what you seek really is."
292
If a man has to go to India to find peace of mind, then he may lose it again when he
leaves India. The same is just as true if he has to stay around a guru for the same
purpose.
293
There is nothing wrong with the urge to visit India, for then he may learn more about
this world of ours and the people in it, and especially about Indian spiritual traditions.
The wrong sets in when he believes that just by displacing himself in space in this way
he is likely to have enlightenment handed over to him by some other man, called a guru,
on a platter. This cannot be, whatever wishful thinking on the one side and fanatical
narrowness on the other may say. At the moment the fad is more Indonesia than India
but the point of the matter is still the same. For enlightenment involves liberation from
his ego, its captivity and deceitfulness.
294
The hidden teaching is unknown to almost all the yogis and swamis in India. It exists,
however, and can be got without going to these people.
295
One man may go to the Orient and gain nothing. It is not emotional exuberance which
produces a high spiritual result, nor visits to many ashrams, but the depth and
concentration with which the truth is seen.
Stages of development
296
Many an old fable is a perfect allegory of this quest. The temptations and perils, the toils
and adventures of its hero are faithful references to what the aspirant has always
encountered in the past and will encounter in our own day.
297
The stages of the Quest pass by degrees from the disciplining of the ego to the opening
of consciousness to the Overself.
298
On this journey there are stages of ascent, stations of understanding, lights of peace, and
shadows of despair.
299
The Quest must traverse the three levels of body, mind, and spirit.
300
There is an Indian formula covering three progressive stages of the quest: Hearing,
Reflection, Enlightenment. It means: Receiving instruction (from guru or text),
Thinking constantly over the teachings until they are thoroughly assimilated,
Experiencing glimpses of a mystical nature. With the end of this third phase, the
aspirant has not only to repeat and prolong the glimpses until his whole life is
permeated by the wisdom and peace which is their fruit, but also to receive and apply
the highest and final philosophic doctrine. With this, his enlightenment becomes
"natural," effortless, unbroken. It is unified with his activity, established whether he is
busy in the world or seated in meditation.
301
According to the Hindu teaching, man passes through three stages of development from
the Inert through the Passional to the Harmonious.
302
In the course of his life the student will pass from one phase of development to another,
thus gradually enriching and expanding his whole character.
303
To start on the quest is the first step. To continue on it is the second, and possibly harder.
Thoroughly to finish the quest is the hardest step of all.
304
It is true that he is only at the beginning of his quest, that its fulfilment may be far far
away, but everything must have a beginning.
305
It is a progressive training which continues throughout one's lifetime.
306
There are times to intensify the quest, to hasten its tempo and stiffen its disciplines.
307
With growth of outlook, development of mind, correct instruction from text or teacher,
correct interpretation of his own and others' experiences, he moves out of narrow
sectarianism into a new universal level.
308
The attitude of faith in another person is undoubtedly helpful to beginners, provided the
faith is justified. But it is a stage necessarily inferior to the attitude of faith in one's own
soul. To turn inwards rather than outwards, to overcome the tendency towards
externality, is to ascend to a higher stage.
309
Negative transference, positive transference, balanced orientation, all are stages of
external adjustment and deserve no higher evaluation than that. On the internal level
alone is the surest equilibrium attainable.
310
This creative changing of circumstances is a twofold process, practised both in the outer
world where those circumstances belong and in the inner world of the spirit, where they
are absent.
311
If he continues the inner work he will pass through various stages of development. It
would be a mistake to believe that he has reached a final attitude or a fixed set of values.
312
Between the beginner and the adept is this difference: that the state of being which the
one looks up to with awe-struck wonder seems entirely natural to the other.
313
The last lap necessarily brings him into the Silence of THAT which transcends intellect,
but it is a silence that is rich with freedom and serenity. Here alone he may hear the
wordless voice of God and, once heard, he can well afford to disregard all other voices.
314
Although the movement towards enlightenment goes forward by stages, the actual
moment of enlightenment comes abruptly with a sudden transcendence of the darkness
in which men ordinarily live.
315
The time will come, if he perseveres, when his mind will naturally orient itself toward
the spiritual pole of being. And this will happen by itself, without any urging on his part.
No outer activity will be able to stop the process, for to make it possible his mind will
apparently double its activity. In the foreground, it will attend to the outer world, but in
the background it will attend to the Overself.
316
He may stop in one or other of these cults for a time but, if he is seeking truth, he will
not remain there. In the end, and after sufficient sampling and discarding over a number
of years, his search will lead him to philosophy.
317
The ascending degrees of initiation into higher understanding of truth and large capacity
to receive contemplative awareness open themselves to him one by one as he passes
each successive test leading to it. These tests consist, in the lower grades, of willingness
to submit physical habits, passions, and desires to discipline and, in higher grades,
willingness to submit thoughts and feelings to it. In all, they lead to a progressive
detachment from the animal and the ego.
318
When the disciple reaches the end of the phase through which he is travelling, his
attention is diverted towards a new one. Uncertainty and chaos descend upon him with
reference to it. He cannot clearly see his further way into it or easily get right direction
through it.
319
There are tests, dangers, and pitfalls at various stages of this Quest.
320
This momentary glimpse of the Overself provides the real beginning of his quest. The
uninterrupted realization of it provides the final ending.
321
When he begins to sense the inner peace and exaltation which is a perfume, as it were,
upon the threshold of the Overself, he may understand how real this inner life is and
paradoxically how unintelligible, indescribable, and immaterial from the ordinary
standpoint. It is something, and yet not something which can be put into shape or form
graspable by the five senses. Anyway it is there and it is the Immortal Soul.
322
The personal man needs to grow and develop adequately as man. Only after this does he
reach the stage when it is safe, and not premature, to undo the ego, and destroy its rule.
For after this point the latter becomes a tyranny when the task now is to make it a
subserviency.
323
It is inevitable that a seeking mind--as differentiated from a stodgy one--should pass
through various progressive phases of thinking.
324
From error at one end to truth at the other, the journey is long and tedious.
325
Let him take from different teachings what suits his mind and purpose: the study of
comparative religion and mysticism may assist him here. But this is for a beginning;
later he will need to specialize each period to its needed idea.
326
It is good as a beginning to believe in God. It is admirable as the next step to try to
come closer to God by worship--but it is not enough. It is a fulfilment of a still higher
duty to try to know that in us which is the link with God, which in contrast to man is of
a godlike nature.
327
The order of progress is from belief to knowledge, and thence to love of that which is
known.
328
If a man comes to this quest by thought or by suffering or by fate, he will end by love if
he remains with it, love of that which shines forth during his first glimpse, love of the
Overself. It is like the child losing, then finding, its parent.
329
First, he has a vague feeling of being attracted towards the Overself. Then he bestows
more attention upon it, thinks of it frequently; at length attention grows into
concentration and this, in turn, culminates in absorption. In the end, he can say, with al
Hallaj: "I live not in myself, only in Thee. Last night I loved. This morning I am Love."
330
The stages in philosophic training usually begin with gaining a theoretical knowledge of
the teachings. When this is well established, it grows in time into an aspiration for self-
improvement and into an effort to mold character and conduct in conformity with the
philosophic ideal. Such a maturation period is often a long and difficult one. In the third
stage the "glimpse" of enlightenment begins to be experienced. The first glimpse has a
far-reaching effect and is likely to be associated with the first contact with an inspired
spiritual guide, or with the writings of such a man. In the case of some persons there is a
different series of steps. The glimpse comes first, the theoretical study next, striving to
express through living comes last.
331
The seeker will pass through three periods successively before he can enter the sublime
land of realization. First he must experiment with and exhaust the external possibilities
of religion; then he must practise the internal rite of meditation; lastly he must, with
sharpened intelligence, pursue the subtlest of all philosophies.
332
That a higher existence is possible for mankind may be a strong intuitive feeling or a
strong religious belief. It can develop through experience of a mystical glimpse into
personal realization or more lastingly, more truthfully, through experience of
philosophic insight.
333
The aspiration or yearning comes first on the Quest, the repentance and cleansing come
next; study, prayer, and meditation will then naturally follow these preparations. He
must first make himself ready for the illumination, then only will he get it. As a
consequence of all these efforts and aspirations, he will begin to grow out of himself.
Wisdom comes with the end of a long probation.
334
The third part of the quest is a moral and social praxis.
335
The higher stage is pure philosophy, for it re-educates his outlook and hence his
consciousness. It demands close, concentrated study, however, and therefore few care
for it. It is based on reasoning, not on mystic intuitions, and will be the logical
development of modern science if it keeps on probing as men like Eddington, Planck,
and others like them have done. Unfortunately the West has not carried reasoning to the
bitter end, as the ancient Rishees did, for it has omitted consideration of the dream and
deep sleep states from its data, as well as other important matters. Reason is not to be
confused with logic, either; the latter is limited and cannot yield truth.
336
But the mystical experience is not sufficiently common to be made the foundation for
popular instruction in the modes of obtaining it. Humanity in its present stage is not
even mystical by nature, let alone philosophical, but it could become so by education
and training. For mysticism always follows religion as a further stage in the individual's
journey. The mystical consciousness is an inevitable stage of human evolution. Every
man will attain it with the efflux of time. But he will not do so by a smooth mechanical
clocklike progress. His ascent will be uneven erratic and zigzag. Yet he will necessarily
attain it. The few who want to anticipate the human evolutionary process must take to
mysticism or philosophy.
337
First stage: This is attained by those who study metaphysics alone or practise mysticism
alone. It is the withdrawal from the senses and their objects. It is negative. It leads to a
perception that the external world is unsatisfactory. It is the great turning away from
things of sense. It is an ascetic stage; it is accompanied by thoughts; it is a recognition
that matter is not ultimately real. It is marked by moral change. It is the discovery
through a glimpse of his spiritual nature which is an ecstatic sense of union with a
superior immaterial being. He feels on occasions that he is divine.
Second stage: It affirms the unique positive ultimate reality. It yields the vision of
mystic light of the Logos; it is attained by mysticism alone. It is entry into the Void; it is
the discovery of Spirit; it is trance. It is thought-free, delights in solitude. This
realization of God in the heart marks the Witness-stage of ultramystic experience. The
man feels utterly detached from his own or the world's activities, so much so that he is
ascetically tempted to withdraw into a retreat from life. If, however, fate forces him to
continue in the world he will feel all the time curiously like a spectator at a cinema
show; but this cannot constitute an ultimate human goal.
Third stage: It is in the world, but not of it. It is the return to the external sense-world
and the discovery that it too is God-born. It never loses sight of its unity with life, but
insists on its connection with action. Instead of becoming a refuge for dreamers, talkers,
and escapists, it becomes an inspiring dynamic. It is the realization of All in himself and
himself in All. With this attainment he throws himself incessantly into the service of
mankind.
Attainments
354
The first reward is truth realized in every part of his being, the lower self becoming the
instrument of the Soul. The second reward is peace, intensely satisfying and joyous. A
keen and constant longing after the Soul's consciousness, a willingness to surrender all
to it inwardly, are however necessary prerequisites.
355
The acceptance of these ideas can only benefit, and not harm, humanity.
356
If he will consciously put himself into line with this higher purpose of human living, he
will not only become a better and wiser man but also a happier one.
357
The pursuit of Mammon is an uncertain adventure, but the pursuit of Truth is full of
certainty. It rewards its own, even in apparent defeat.
358
With every year of growing experience and continued application, he will find more and
more the truth of these teachings. He will in consequence be unable not to love them
more and more.
359
Out of the Quest will come a yearning for what is the best in life and the highest in
Truth.
360
Out of the medley of mystical researches and peculiar experiments, religious studies and
metaphysical contemplations which have taken up so large a part of the Quest, there
will emerge a few irrefragable certitudes.
361
When this truth is at last seen, that heaven is not a place in space but a condition of
being, and that therefore it can to a certain extent be realized even before death, a
feeling of joy and a sense of adventure are felt. The joy arises because we are no longer
restricted by time, and the adventuresomeness arises because a vista of the quest's
possibilities opens up.
362
A serenity which never leaves him and an integrity which always stamps him, are only
two of the fruits of matured philosophic discipline.
363
If there were nothing more--no exciting or dramatic inner experience--possible than this
ameliorating peace, this extra-deep feeling of stillness, it would be enough to make the
time and care given to it worthwhile. But there is more for those who want also to know
something of its source, its workings and connections. Beyond that little measure of
knowledge, be content, for the Great Mystery swallows all who find it. Yet there is
nothing to fear.
364
He whose resort is solely the personal ego is constantly subject to its limitations and
narrowness and, consequently, is afflicted with strains and anxieties. He who lets it go
and opens himself up, whose resort is to his Higher Self, finds it infinite and boundless
and, consequently, is filled with inward peace.
365
The quest often begins with a great sadness but always ends with a great happiness. Its
course may flow through both dark and bright moods at times, but its terminus will be
unbelievably serene.
366
When he has brought the host of conflicting emotions to rest, when he has trained the
thoughts to obedience, when he has fought and beaten the ego itself, he comes to a state
of peace.
367
Therefore it is that, grey with wandering from his ancient goal, the aspirant turns tired
feet across the threshold of immortal thought and dwells for a soft white hour upon the
couch of unutterable peace. The words he has heard with his mortal ears have proved
only of momentary worth to him, but the words he hears when he turns away from the
world and listens with the inner ear will walk by his side until the end of Time.
368
The Quest gives him the chance to achieve inner peace and find inner happiness; it does
not give peace and happiness. If this does not seem to justify its labours and disciplines,
remember that ordinary man lacks even this chance.
369
To enter into the presence of a high inspiration, feel its ennoblement, and understand its
message, brings a deeply satisfying joy.
370
The man who fails to find joy in his Quest has not understood the Quest.
371
There is no need for aspirants to engage in the cult of morbid suffering. There is no
reason why they should not be happy. If the Quest is to bring them nearer to their
essential self, it will also bring them nearer to its happiness.
372
When a man feels the presence of a diviner self within his breast, when he believes that
its power protects and provides for him, when he views past errors and future troubles
alike with perfect equanimity, he has a better capacity to enjoy life and a truer
expression of happiness than those who delight only in ephemeral pleasures and sense
satisfactions. For it will endure into times of adversity and last through hours of
calamity, where the other will crumble and vanish.
373
Wisdom may or may not come with the years of old age: it is more likely to come with
the labours in self-rule and the deepenings of study, concentration, and reflection, with
the humbling religious veneration of the higher Power. It is, they say, its own reward but
it is a bringer of gifts, of which inner peace is the most prominent and a kindly smile the
most permanent.
374
The student who has diligently applied himself to the primary tasks of self-
improvement, and who has accompanied his efforts with honest and rigid self-analysis,
will discover that many questions which formerly baffled him have been solved by the
workings of his own intuition.
375
He who has won wisdom as the reward of his quest wins virtue as its natural
accompaniment too.
376
Nobody can earnestly work through a course in the higher philosophy without finding
himself a better and wiser man at the end than he was at the beginning. And this result
will come to him almost unconsciously, little by little, through the creative power of
right thinking.
377
His judgements turn out to be misjudgements, and his caution to be indecision. Often
this may be so, alas! But this is the kind of wisdom which comes with failure or defeat;
it embodies the hindsight which, too late to be of possible use except in the future, is the
consequence after the event. How precious then would be the acquirement of two values
to which the Quest may lead a man--calmness and intuition.
378
Here on the quest, it is not only possible for him to meet the profoundest thoughts of the
human mind but also its highest experiences.
379
He who finds the Overself, loses the burdens, the miseries, and the fears of the ego.
380
How does the quest remove his fears? By providing him sooner or later with firm
assurance that the Overself's gracious power is not only illuminative but also protective.
381
Slowly, as he strives onward with this inner work, his faults and frailties will fall away
and this ever-shining better self hidden behind them will begin to be revealed.
382
Even if his quest ends in total failure (which it cannot do) the ideals and ideas it
involves will have left some impress on his character, for they are faint reverberations of
whispers from his higher being.
383
When this inner work is sufficiently advanced, certain traits of character will either
advance in strength or appear for the first time. Among them are patience, goodwill,
stability, self-control, peacefulness, and equableness.
384
His meditations tend to make him sensitive and his studies sympathetic; the two
qualities combine well so that others notice how kindly he is in personal relations.
385
It is essential to make clear that none should take to this Quest in order to follow or
depend on some particular man, or to gain certain mystic experiences, for if he is
disappointed in the man or frustrated in reaching the experiences, he will be inclined to
abandon the Quest. No!--he should take to it for its own sake, because it is
immeasurably worthwhile and because its rewards in improved character and developed
understanding are sufficient in themselves to pay for his effort. If the Quest helps him to
become aware of, and to eradicate, bad faults in himself, in his outlook on life and in his
approach to others, it has justified itself. Even if the mystical consciousness fails to
show itself, or to show itself often enough to please him, he has still had his money's
worth.
386
The time will come when values will change, when ambitions, powers, possessions, and
acquisitions will all be put back into their proper places, when their tyranny over the
will and the feelings will be put to an end.
387
He who seeks his inner being, and finds it, finds also his inner good.
388
Those who will take the trouble to comprehend what all this means, and who will do
what they can to practise the requisite exercises, will find with increasing joy that new
life opening up to them.
389
The aspirant is not unreasonable in asking that some reward, if not an adequate reward,
should become visible in time for all his struggles. If he is told to acquire the virtue of
patience, he is not told to acquire the quality of hopelessness. There are signs and
tokens, experiences and glimpses to hearten him on the way.
390
Those who are willing to practise the philosophic discipline may realize their spiritual
nature for themselves and not have to depend upon hearsay for the knowledge of its
existence.
391
It can be shown that the disciplines of philosophy offer much in return, that to the
person who seriously feels his life needs not mere amendment but raising to a finer level
there are encouraging experiences and beautiful intuitions awaiting him.
392
It is a new and different, a superior and fuller, a self-fulfilling kind of experience.
393
A life so full of exalted purpose, so inspired by a tremendous ideal, cannot be a dull or
unhappy one.
394
The toil of the quest is hard and long. If it deters anyone from starting on it, let him
remember that the rewards along the way, even apart from the grand one at the end, are
sufficiently worthwhile to repay him for all he is likely to do.
395
The reward of all the years of long arduous striving will be their happy justification; the
rich blessing of an infinite strength within him will pay off the failures and weaknesses
of a past self which had to be fought and conquered.
396
During times of war and suffering, the spiritual Quest demonstrates its value by the
inner support which it gives and the unquenchable faith it bestows. The forces of evil
will be checked; the good will triumph in the end, as always. God's love for all remains
what it ever shall be--the best thing in life.
397
No man may free himself from every form of outward suffering but all men may free
themselves from inward suffering.
398
How weak, how helpless is the man who is himself alone. How strong, how supported
is the man who is both himself and more than himself. In the one, there is only the petty
little ego as the motor force; in the other there is also the infinite universal being.
399
Any man may detect the presence of divinity within himself, if he will patiently work
through the course prescribed by authoritative books or a competent guide. It is not the
prerogative of spiritual genius alone to detect it.
400
Is all this too good to be true, too beautiful to be factual? Is it only a theory without
grounds, a personal belief without evidence? No!--it is quite demonstrable to anyone
who will undertake the work upon himself.
401
If the quest does nothing more than save him in his darkest hours from total
submergence in the all-prevalent worldliness, it will have done enough.
402
The quest can give stability to the feelings, support to the mind, defense against the
pettiness and the evil in the world.
403
The transformations effected by this inner work seem, when stabilized, to be a natural
maturity.
404
It is only in the rational balanced growth of the mind and the sympathetic heart, the
disciplined body and the tranquillized nerves, the philosophic reflectiveness, mystic
peace, and ultramystic insight, that a man arrives at last at maturity and normality and
thus becomes really sane.
405
The rewards of this quest are not primarily material ones, although these may come. The
only reward that can be guaranteed to the successful aspirant is that he will emerge out
of the unregenerate state and come closer to the Overself's consciousness, that is to say,
to the kingdom of heaven. Whoever looks for more may be disappointed. But to the
man who through reflection or suffering, intuition or instruction, has got his values
right, this will be enough.
406
From the first momentary glimpse of the soul till the final rest in it, he is being led to
accept the truth that the love which he wants and hopes to find outside himself must be
found within himself. The true beloved is not a person but a presence. When genuine
love in its most intense form utterly overwhelms him, he will find that its physical form
is a mere caricature of it and that its human form is a pale reflection from it. Instead of
having to beg some woman or some man for crumbs of affection from their table, he
will find a veritable fountain of everflowing love deep within his heart, and therefore
ever available to him in the fullest measure. This is the one beloved who can never
desert him, the unique soul-mate who will forever remain with him, the only twin soul
he can seek with the absolute certainty that it is truly his own.
407
At the least there will be more outer harmony and less outer friction in day-to-day
living, more inner peace and less inner anxiety.
408
It leads to amity in human relationships and dissolves enmity.
409
The more a man becomes acquainted with the true sources of his inner life--both in its
good and bad sides--the better it will be for his outer life.
410
He will expand the meaning of his own habitual life-experience as he expands the
awareness of the divine in himself.
411
Practical wisdom in overcoming the most difficult situations and perfect skill in
managing the most delicate ones, are qualities which should emerge from the balanced
training given by this quest.
412
It becomes the background, unknown to other persons, of all his activities. This is a
considerable achievement, a consequence of applying to them what he perceived in
meditation, learnt in study, and understood in reflection.
413
It is a teaching whose conceptions give the mind a reasonable understanding of life and
whose practice gives the heart repose.
414
It is a gross mistake to believe that this is a path to worldly misery and material
destitution. Says an ancient Sanskrit text, Ratna Karanda Sravakachara: "Whoever
turns himself into a jewel-case of philosophic wisdom, perfect devotion, and faultless
conduct, to him comes success in all his enterprises, like a woman eager to return to her
husband." Note particularly that the promise is made to those who have travelled the
threefold path and have also travelled it to its end.
415
Although its promises and experiences may not appear glamorous in a worldly sense,
the Quest reveals itself to be the best of all possible ways of living.
416
No one who feels that his inner weakness or outer circumstances prevent him from
applying this teaching should therefore refrain from studying it. That would not only be
a mistake but also a loss on his part. For as the Bhagavad Gita truly says, "A little of
this knowledge saves from much danger." Even a few years' study of philosophy will
bring definite benefit into the life of a student. It will help him in all sorts of ways,
unconsciously, here on earth and it will help him very definitely after death during his
life in the next world of being.(P)
417
He who is sufficiently ready to recognize the Higher Purpose of Life, and who has the
courage to change and improve his way of thinking, thereby replacing negative thoughts
by positive ones, will certainly be rewarded by improved circumstances and greater
happiness than he may already enjoy.
418
If it exacts the highest possible price in human satisfactions it gives in return the highest
possible spiritual satisfactions.
419
The aspirant may have already discovered for himself some of the inner benefits of the
Quest. Once the Overself has been experienced as a felt, living presence in the heart, it
loosens the grip of egoistic desires--together with their emotional changes of mood--on
one's consciousness and lifts it to a higher level, where he will soon become aware of a
wonderful inner satisfaction which remains calm and unruffled despite outward
circumstances to the contrary.
Ultimately, the aspirant has to rise into that pure atmosphere whence he can survey his
personal life as a thing apart. Still more difficult is it for one to live on that level while
expressing the wisdom and goodness known to him. It is, however, almost beyond
human strength to achieve the second part of such a program. Therefore, he has first to
establish the connection with the Overself so that its strength and understanding will
then rule him effortlessly. The moment this connection is established, the aspirant will
become aware of results from the descent of Divine Grace upon his personality. Such a
moment is unpredictable, but, for the individual who sticks to the Quest, its arrival is
sure.
420
Out of these intense struggles with his thoughts and emotions, these repeated
meditations and altruistic actions, these constant self-analyses and ardent yearnings, he
will eventually get something which words can hardly describe. It will be a new sense
of sacredness, an enlightened awareness of a deeper self, a blessed loving serenity.
421
Intelligence exercised constantly in musing upon the nature of life, the movements of
the universe, the psychology of man, and the mystery of God--if exercised in calmness,
intuitive balance, and depth--leads to the opening up of the soul.
422
In meditation practice, metaphysical study, and right conduct we have the triune path
which brings satisfaction, peace, wisdom, and true prosperity. Jesus taught us all this
long ago but unfortunately his message has been largely misunderstood, distorted, and
even falsified. However he also taught that we are all the children of God. It is a Father's
business to look after his children. Despite the tragedy and horror of our times, those
who have eyes to see can still see the divine arms enfolding us. Despite the presence of
monstrosities in the world, there is also the presence of the Overself--beautiful, radiant,
benign, and indestructible.
423
If he lets this purpose penetrate his entire life, he will soon joyously feel that he is part
of the eternal structure of the universe, that he fits into the Idea of it at some point, and
that with such a high relationship all things must work together for his ultimate good.
Dangers
424
Those who are frightened away from the Quest by these notes of its dangers are better
separated from it.
425
The aspirant who lacks balance is liable to take a misstep at more than one point of his
path.
426
If an unbalanced dreamer is not brought to actuality and reality by experience, he had
better leave the quest alone. This is not to say that he cannot get mystical experiences in
plenty, but that they will have little true worth for insight.
427
The uncertainties of the Quest may lead, especially in the neurotic temperament, to a
variety of unhappy moods and unhealthy emotions as the years pass by. The student
may at such times turn against himself in morbid masochism, or against the teaching he
has been following, or against the personal instructor if he has one.
428
The novice too often lives under the delusion that he is following the Quest when he has
yet to find the entrance to it.
429
The importance of right direction is such that if the angle of deflection covers a long
period, the area of error stretches a wide distance.
430
A self-protective need of the quester is to find and keep both an apparent and a real
sanity. The first is needed in defense against the world, the second against himself.
431
When yoga is improperly or over-practised, one of the harmful results will be a gradual
slackening of interest in the common activities of mankind. The unfortunate practitioner
develops a blurred and vague character. He becomes increasingly unfit to fulfil social
obligations or business duties, and tends to become bored with responsibilities. He
treats the fate of others with indifference. He does what is inescapable, but he does it in
a casual, detached, and uninterested manner. In short, he becomes unfit for everyday
practical life.
432
Keep away from psychic practices and occult explorations. They are filled with dangers
and pitfalls. First devote your energies to the foundational work of learning philosophy,
improving character, disciplining emotion, and cultivating calmness. Only after this
work has been well advanced will it ever be safe for you to take up occultism, for only
then will you be properly equipped to do so.
433
Once again must a warning be given against the dangers of falling into mere psychism
and seeking for phenomena, visions, miracles, and other things which are still in the
realm of a kind of subtle materialism and are always connected with the personal ego.
The true spiritual experience is higher than that, purer than that, and will leave him
absolutely calm, whereas the psychical phenomena leave him excited. Every kind of
such phenomena involves thought or emotion, whereas the deepest spiritual experience
goes beneath thought and emotion and especially beneath the personal ego. Only then
does one come in contact with the Infinite life-power which is behind everything and
which is the true goal of this Quest.
434
Those who imagine the Quest to be a spiritual joyride know only a limited phase of it.
For along with the joys there are glooms, difficulties, struggles, conflicts, and
vacillations.
435
That a proportion of those who are attracted to these subjects are psychopaths, is
unfortunately true. They would be far better employed in getting proper treatment for
their disordered minds, imaginations, and feelings. Mystical studies may easily
exaggerate their condition and increase their imbalance. It is the serious duty of every
responsible expounder to warn them off this field and to bid them engage in the quest of
psychic and bodily health before attempting that of spiritual light!
436
When a man pays no heed to the warnings of prophets and the counsel of sages, and is
still too ungrown to pick his steps correctly, he inevitably loses his way.
437
The awakening of inner forces ought not be attempted without an accompanying
attempt to fortify character and guard against weakness.
438
In the case of mentally disturbed or emotionally unbalanced persons, trust in their own
ego may easily be misread as trust in the Overself--with correspondingly lamentable
results.
439
The danger is that he may get lost in the mazes of his own mind. Those who suffer from
such psychic maladjustments cannot find truth but only its distortions. They have fallen
into a mental quagmire.
440
Let him not deceive himself. Few have ever really entered that exquisite awareness and
remained there. Others seem to have done so but the fact is that they merely touched its
outermost fringe for a few moments and then passed into an egoistic conceited state
which has trapped them.
441
Certain psychic experiences may arise, the pattern of which is familiar, having been
observed in both the writer's own experience and numerous other cases. Between the
ordinary state of undeveloped humanity and the truly spiritual state attained by highly
advanced individuals, there is a psychic region conducive to mediumship and other
pitfalls and dangers which has to be crossed. One is indeed fortunate to come through
this safely.
442
From several different sources a variety of suggestive influences play upon the student's
mind and habits, influences which may be all very well for others but which may be
harmful to his own individuality at his particular stage of spiritual progress. This is true
not only of the trivial affairs of everyday living but also of the loftier affairs of
aspirational living. White truths and black falsehoods, cleverly combined half-truths and
half-falsehoods are continually being presented to his consciousness. Not only his
physical life, but also his mental life must become a process of careful acceptance and
vigilant rejection. At a certain stage of this quest the seeker must be particularly careful
to be on his guard against the skilfully suggested "truths" of others who mistake their
own candle-glimmer for the sun's glory and the prejudices born of their own narrow
experience for the wisdom born of insight. This caution is especially necessary in the
sphere of mystical experience.
443
The wary seeker should be on his guard against those who offer pseudo-knowledge as
well as those extremists who would lead him off balance.
444
Those who take to this quest for the sake of satisfying personal ambition, will do better
in the end to leave it alone.
445
Travelling on this quest can be only another way of inflating their egos, increasing their
pride, and renewing their sectarianism.
446
It is not easy, this quest. Some stumble along it and somehow manage to advance a little
way, but others give up.
447
A longtime personal disciple of Professor Jung told P.B., "My friend and teacher Jung
was not opposed to yoga: it was only that most of the people who came to see him were
patients who suffered from psychosis. He thought this should be cured first, or yoga
would be perilous."
448
Teachers have sometimes tried to discourage people from entering on the Quest, for, by
their own experience, they know what a long and painful road it is.
449
Beginners come to this quest with little knowledge and much indoctrination, so that
sectarian attitudes soon appear again, although clothed in a different jargon.
450
Too many beginners form too many misconceptions about this subject, too often got
from miscellaneous cursory reading of mixed quality.
451
There is not only danger in dabbling in meditation but also in experimenting in it too
long without adequate safeguards or qualified supervision.
452
Seductive activities, phenomena, ideas, or "guides" may try to lure him from this
straight course into time-wasting sideshows or dangerous directions. Reform, psychism,
politics, perverted teachings or counterfeit ones may call but must not be heeded. He
has a long way to go yet and must take care to keep on the right road.
453
Good intent or sincere motive cannot by itself be enough to protect the fool against his
own gullibility, the uncritical against his own stupidity, and the uninformed against his
own ignorance. All this is as true of the quest itself as of that part of its practice called
meditation.
454
Extravagant assertions and erroneous ideas constitute another peril which besets the
developing beginner.
455
There is an evil quest too, whose disciples seek to serve their lower nature rather than to
conquer it, and whose masters show themselves by action or teaching to be monsters.
456
Warnings must be given against possible pitfalls on the quester's way. Yes, meditation
may lead to hallucinations, spiritual self-development may lead to spiritual vanity, and
self-purification may lead to ascetic crankiness.
6. Student-Teacher
o General notes
o The need for a teacher
o Books as teachers
o Issues in seeking a teacher
o Qualifications, duties of a teacher
o Master-disciple relationship
o Qualifications, duties of a disciple
o Cultivating the inner link
o Master as symbol
o Graduation
6 - Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 6: Student-Teacher
Student-Teacher
General notes
1
The few who have a broad experience of life, whose reason is sufficiently alive to judge
both fruits and roots correctly and whose intuition is sufficiently active to recognize
nobility when meeting it, who want the whole truth and nothing less, will find a friend
(for he will not wish to be anything more) who will decline to permit others to hold a
fanciful vision of an earthly perfection which is non-existent; who will be humble, sane,
and balanced above all things, and yet prove with time--if they themselves prove loyal--
to be also a sure and benevolent guide in this dark forest where so many wander
bewildered, deceived, or self-deceived. Excessive unreflective saint-worship raises
exaggerated and even false hopes. It has historically often ended with exploitation of the
worshipper. But even where it does not, it is still incompatible with healthy self-
development; an affectionate respect is wiser and safer. Let us not ask a teacher to be a
god, because thereby we are liable to deceive and endanger ourselves, but let us ask him
to be competent and illumined, truthful and helpful and compassionate.
2
Not by our own exertions alone, and not by the gift or grace of an external being alone,
can we be brought to final realization, but by both.
3
Those who can let themselves be uplifted by some inspired or enlightened person
should understand that he is capable of lifting them to the point of touching their best
self, the divinity within them. Some may even gain a glimpse of it, a memorable
unforgettable experience. But will they let it happen?
4
We are not left to find out for ourselves what the truth is. Now and then messengers
appear among us, each bearing his own personal communication about the existence of
a higher power and the need of a higher life.
5
We may help the Overself in drawing us to the goal by surrendering to the guidance of a
competent spiritual adviser or we may obstruct it by clinging to the ego's. But an
incompetent adviser will also obstruct it, and in fact become a channel for the ego's
truth-obscuring tactics.
6
The difficulty of the task of self-improvement is not to be underrated and it is because
of this as well as for other reasons that seekers since ancient times have been advised to
obtain the help of a guru. From him they can get inspiration, guidance, and a certain
telepathically transferred strengthening power which is called Grace.
7
Wherever there is instruction to be got there is an ashram. And whenever you go there
you will get instruction from the experiences of life. Therefore the whole world is an
ashram to a discerning student. Much the same applies to the question of a teacher. Says
a Bengali verse: "Wouldst thou make obeisance to thy master, my heart? He is there at
every step, on each side of thy path. The welcome offered thee is thy master, the agony
inflicted on thee is thy master. Every wrench at thy heartstrings that maketh the tears
flow is thy master."
8
Any book or person seen or art production which reminds a man of his diviner self, is to
that extent his teacher. Any happening or event or experience which alienates him from
such remembrance, whether it be regarded by the world as good or as evil, likewise is
his teacher. Even his own unworthy actions will, because of the consequences to which
they must infallibly lead, also be his teachers.
9
Those whose inner development or outer circumstances or personal karma have
prepared them for the truth will come to it anyway: they may need a little prodding or a
lot of reflection, but in the end they will recognize it for what it is. But they confound
this recognition with the relation of discipleship to some guru. The two things need to
be separated if they are to be correctly understood.
10
Teaching is always available in some way or some form, for Life, through varied
situations, takes care of its own; but a Teacher in his physical form may not be available
just at the necessary point in time. In that case, one may be met through his writings. If
this does not happen, he may come into the mental life during a great anguish or an
enforced inactivity or an unusual relaxation or, finally, through or during meditation.
11
(Mira Bai) "On the way I found two guides: the spiritual preceptors and God. To the
preceptors I make my bow. But God I keep in my heart."
Books as teachers
81
It is not essential to find a teacher in the flesh--he may be in print. A book may become
a quite effective teacher and guide.
82
In the absence of a sage's personal society, one may have recourse to the best
substitute--a sage's printed writings.
83
Most students seeking inspiration have no other choice than recourse to the printed
words.
84
Books are most useful to those who, whether by necessity through lack of sincere
competent instruction or by choice, to avoid narrow sectarianism, seek the goal by
themselves.
85
Inspired texts, portions of scriptures, great men's writings and sayings offer guidance on
the course of action to be followed, the ethical considerations to be heeded, the
decisions to be made under certain pressures, crises, or confrontations--decisions whose
consequences are often quite grave. Who can price the value of such readings at such
times?
86
The personal contact with a master does not necessarily require a face-to-face meeting.
It can also be effected through a letter written by him--nay, to some degree, even
through a book written by him. For his mind incarnates itself in these productions. Thus,
those who are prevented by circumstances from meeting him physically, may meet him
mentally and gain the same results.
87
The perspicacious student will cling steadfastly throughout his life to the writings of
illumined masters, returning to them again and again. Their works are the truest of all,
pure gold and not alloys.
88
There are men whose thought went deeper and understood more clearly than that of
their fellows. Their record exists, their sayings and writings also. Their study is
worthwhile, their precepts can be put to the test in practical everyday living.
89
In these books the voice of men who were spiritually illuminated long ago speaks to
him. They are the only way in which it can speak to him today. Therefore he should
respect and cherish them.
90
Those who have towered above all other men as Masters, who have left records of their
path and of its attainment, can be good guides.
91
Why not make these great men your teachers through their preserved teachings? Why
not be the disciple of Socrates, Buddha, Saint Paul, and dozens of others?
92
However distant a teacher may be, whether in country or century, by means of this
written record he is able to help whoever is willing to lend his time and eyes.
93
If a book gives correct teaching about the quest and necessary warning about its pitfalls,
it should be studied with proper care and respect.
94
A man can take from the printed word what he is unable to hear from the spoken word.
95
The truth-seeker will be wise to make use of such outward helps as appeal to him. They
may be the written word, the printed book, the molded statuette, the pictorial
representation, or the human photograph--always provided they are referable to a
genuinely inspired source. He should study the words and works, the lives and examples
of practising mystics, and follow in their footsteps.
96
Good books are not to be disdained, despite contemptuous references by fanatical
mystics or ill-balanced ascetics. Negatively, they will warn him against misleading
elements likely to cause a deviation from his correct course. Positively, they will guide
him where no personal guide is available.
97
But he must beware of imagining that the pleasure he derives from spiritual reading is
any sign that he is making progress in spiritual living. It is easier to read lofty thoughts
than to think them out for oneself, and to live them is the most difficult of all.
98
Books, too, serve as guides if they are properly used, that is, if their limitations are
recognized and if their authors' limitations are acknowledged. In the first case it is the
intellect's own inability to transcend thought that stops it from realizing truth. In the
second case it is the evolutionary status of the man's ego, and the accuracy of his
attitudes--themselves victims or controllers of his emotions, passions--which matter. For
if his mind cannot register the impact of truth, because of the blockage set up partially
or even all around him, the author's work will reflect his ignorance. He cannot teach
what he does not know; his own mental obscurity can lead only to the reader's obscurity.
Yet such is the deceptiveness of thought, that a wrong or false idea may be received and
held in the mind under the belief that it is a right or true one.
99
Book teaching is too general. It makes no allowance for individual differences, for the
wide variation from one person to another. It is always necessary for the readers to
adapt the teaching to their own sex, age, character, strength, and circumstances.
100
The very fine writings of philosophers and mystics of all times may bring into one's life
some emotional inspirational and intellectual guidance, even, possibly, stimulating his
power of will. Through the long, unavoidable years of struggle on the Quest, they can,
to that extent, act the part of a teacher or guide. However, it must be remembered that
some are infinitely more worthwhile than others, and it is essential for one to be able to
discriminate between what is true and helpful and what is false and worthless.
101
These subjects are becoming more widely known and more studied than they were a
half-century ago. There has been quite a flow of literature, original works,
commentaries, and translations in our time making both mystical and philosophic ideas
more available.
102
With the universal spread of elementary education, and the issue of cheaper paper-
covered texts and translations, it is now possible for most earnest seekers living in the
free countries to come into possession of the teaching.
103
If he cannot understand the more intellectual portions of these books he should not
worry because they are written for different classes and those portions which he cannot
follow are particularly addressed to highbrows and have to be expressed in a more
complicated and scientific style.
104
If the literature on these subjects is so much larger today, the problem of choosing
correctly what is most reliable is so much more difficult.
105
The writings of these Masters help both the moral nature and the intellectual mind of the
responsive and sensitive, who are excited to the same endeavour, exhilarated to the
same level, and urged to realize the same ideas. These stand out from all other writings
because they contain vivid inspiration and true thought.
106
From these great writings, he will receive impulses of spiritual renewal. From these
strong paragraphs and lovely words he will receive incitement to make himself better
than he is. Their every page will carry a message to him; indeed, they will seem to be
written for him.
107
One of the helps to kindle this spark into a flame is the reading of inspired literature,
whether scripture or not--the mental association through books with men who have
themselves been wholly possessed by this love.
108
With such books he will feel for a while better than he is, wiser than he is.
109
Every book which stimulates aspiration and widens reflection does spiritual service and
acts as a guru.
110
A chance phrase in such an inspired writing may give a man the guidance for which he
has long been waiting.
111
The words of inspired men are like a lighthouse to those seekers who are still groping in
the dark.
112
Perhaps one prime value of a book is its power to remind students of fundamental
principles and its ability to recall them to the leading points of this teaching, for these
are easily lost or overlooked amid the press of daily business.
113
He will draw from such reading the incentive to keep on with his quest and the courage
to set higher goals.
114
It may not be in the power of any piece of writing to guide a man all the way along this
quest but it certainly is in its power to give him general direction and specific warning.
115
Let him study the literature of mystical and philosophic culture to become better
informed about the Quest, about its nature and goal, and about himself.
116
By comparing what is described in the books with what he has so far experienced for
himself, an aspirant may check and correct his course.
117
Those who were awakened by this reading could then look elsewhere for the personal
guidance they seek.
118
Through a book help is given without involving the helper in the personal lives of the
readers, but through a letter or a meeting involvement begins.
Master-disciple relationship
548
To be someone's disciple is to go farther in relationship than to be his student.
549
If men call themselves disciples sharing his views, two paths become open to them. The
first is to become lay disciples, who limit themselves to intellectual sharing only. The
second is to become full disciples, who go all the way with him into the philosophical
discipline and life.
550
One great advantage of the path of personal discipleship is that it requires no intellectual
capacity, no special gifts of any kind, to get its profits and make progress along its
course. What could be simpler than remembering the master's name and face? What
could be easier than mentally turning to him every day in faith, reverence, humility, and
devotion?
551
The advantage of having a living master is immense. Man is so sense-bound that it is
easier for him to follow an embodied ideal than a disembodied one, easier to understand
truth in action than truth in the abstract. Should anyone have the good fortune to be
taken under the wing of a sage, his progress will go forward at a far quicker rate than
would otherwise be possible. It is not a little thing that he has someone to turn him in
the right direction or that his movement in this direction is guided by an experienced
pioneer.
552
Although the master cannot do the disciple's work for him, he can put the disciple in
command of the special knowledge derived from long experience which can help him
do the work more efficiently and more successfully.
553
The master will teach with love what the student must learn with reverence.
554
As the Master brings the disciple to clarify his own thinking and knowledge and
awareness, the latter turns his attention to what it is that he really does believe.
555
The zeal of the Master will by slow degrees permeate the heart of the disciple.
556
Under the sunshine of this encouragement, inspiration, and stimulation, the inner life
expands.
557
Only those who have themselves felt it can understand how he is able to exert such
drawing power and arouse such fervid devotion in disciples.
558
There is intimacy in the fellowship between teacher and disciple which is unique. There
is an impersonality in this most personal of human relationships which is equally
unique.
559
No other relationship, whether familial or friendly, can compare with this relationship in
depth or beauty or value.
560
There is no tie so strong, no attraction so deep as that between Master and pupil.
Consequently it persists through incarnation after incarnation.
561
It is a special kind of relationship, one which is less dependent on physical conditions
than any other human relationship. If they never meet again, never see each other again,
it remains unchangeably the same to the end.
562
The average aspirant does not find the true teachers because he would not behave
himself correctly with them if he did. Sooner or later he would abuse the lofty character
of the relation of discipleship and seek to force it to become a half-worldly one. It is
probably true to say that even imperfect teachers, who are all that the public is likely to
know, often receive from their followers frantic appeals for this or that personal
intervention or frenzied outpourings concerning this or that personal material problem
for which immediate help is demanded. But even when the aspirant has linked himself
up with an embodied master or invisible adept, a scriptural personage or his own higher
self, he may start to assume that the higher power or person is henceforth going to settle
all his personal troubles without his own exertions being called for. This is a piece of
wishful thinking. The very purpose of evolution would be defeated if he were to be
deprived of the opportunity of tackling his problems and troubles for himself: it is only
so that his capacities can stretch out and his understanding enlarge itself. We may
sympathize with the need of troubled disciples, but a wrong notion of what constitutes
the teacher-disciple relation will not help them. It will lead to false hopes and the
anguish of subsequent disappointment. For what is it that they are really trying to do?
They are not merely using the teacher as a spiritual guide, which is quite correct, but
also as a material guide, leaning-post, and father-mother, which is quite wrong. They
want to shunt their own responsibilities and shift their personal burdens onto the back of
a master or at least to share them with him. Such a conception of discipleship is a wrong
one. Also it is an unfair one. Instead of using the master as a source of principles and
inspirations to be applied by themselves in practical life, they try to exploit him, to
avoid the responsibility for making their own decisions by saddling it upon his
shoulders. The master cannot solve all their personal problems or carry all their burdens.
This task rests with the disciples themselves. To seek to shift their responsibility for it
onto the master's shoulders is to demand the impossible, the unfair, and the unwise. If
successful, it would defeat the very purpose of their incarnation. It would rob them of
the benefit of the experience to which they have been led by their own Overself. Such
excessive reliance on the guide makes them more and more incapable of independent
thought and judgement. But it should be the object of a competent guide to help them
develop these very things and grow in spiritual strength, as it should be the aim of a
sincere one not dictatorially to rule their conduct but suggestively to elevate it. If they
are to advance to higher levels, disciples must learn to rely on their own endeavours. No
master can relieve them of this responsibility. It is not the work of a philosophic teacher
to save students from having to make decisions for themselves. It is, on the contrary, his
duty to encourage them to face up to rather than to flee from the responsibility and
profit of working out their own solutions. The prudent master will leave them to work
out for themselves how to apply philosophy to their personal situations. For him to
manage their lives, settle their problems, and negotiate their difficulties might please
their egos but would weaken their characters. Hence, he does not wish to interfere in
their lives nor assume responsibility for forming decisions on those personal, domestic,
family, employment, and business problems which they ought to arrive at for
themselves. At best he can point out the general direction for travel, not supply a
definite map; he can lay down the general principles of action and it is for them to find
out the best way of applying these principles. The agony of coming to a right judgement
is part of the educative process in developing right intuitions. Each experience looked at
in this way brings out their independent creative faculty, that is, makes them truly self-
reliant. The principles of such solutions are partially in their hands; practical horse-
sense must be harnessed to shrewd reason and guided by ethical ideals and intuitions.
563
It is not right for the would-be disciple to take the new relationship as an excuse for
releasing himself from all personal responsibilities, all personal decisions. He should
not expect the teacher to take entire charge of his entire life for him. Nor is it right for a
teacher to accept such a position, to play a role consisting of father and mother and God
combined into a single person toward an individual who has reached adult life. It will
not help a disciple to let him evade his responsibilities and shirk his decisions. If the
atmosphere between them is surcharged with emotion alone without the restraining
balances of reason and common sense, this is the kind of situation which is likely to be
brought about. A wise teacher will try to meet disciples upon the proper ground between
accepting such helpless dependence and rebuffing it brusquely altogether. Any other
meeting would be unhealthy emotionally and unsound intellectually.
564
Emerson: "Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house,
or know his mother and brothers and sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are
these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to
me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news
nor pottage. I can get politics and chat, neighbourly conveniences from cheaper
companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and as
great as nature itself?"--These words are just as applicable to the disciple.
565
Whoever entrusts himself to a master or his mind to a teaching, cannot escape his own
personal responsibility for what he does. This is not to absolve either the guru or the
author of the teaching from their own responsibility, which they also have, but it is to
make clear that the followers share it too.
566
The disciple's reverence for the Master can still hold room for sight of the latter's
failings and imperfections. If he gets enough inspiration from the Master to help his
spiritual life, it would be a foolish decision to leave him because of those failings and
imperfections.
567
In primitive tribal times it was the custom in most places to measure knowledge by the
length of the beard. Today it is found that many of our cleverest atomic energy scientists
are comparatively young and certainly beardless! It is as sensible to follow the primitive
custom nowadays as it is to measure virtue by the beauty of the face. Yet it is not an
uncommon attitude for self-styled truth-seekers to follow one spiritual teacher because
his facial appearance pleases them and to reject another teacher because his physical
figure displeases them! Says Sören Kierkegaard in Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
"He (Socrates) was very ugly, had clumsy feet, and, above all, a number of growths on
the forehead and elsewhere, which would suffice to persuade anyone that he was a
demoralized subject. This was what Socrates understood by his favourable appearance
in which he was so thoroughly happy that he would have considered it a chicane of the
divinity to prevent him from becoming a teacher of morals, had he been given an
attractive appearance like an effeminate cithara player, a melting glance like a shepherd
lad, small feet like a dancing master in the Friendly Society and in toto as favourable an
appearance as could have been desired by any applicant for a job through the
newspapers, or any theologue who has pinned his hope on a private call. Why was this
old teacher so happy over his unfavourable appearance, unless it was because he
understood that it must help to keep the learner at a distance, so that the latter might not
stick fast in a direct relationship to the teacher, perhaps admire him, perhaps have his
clothes cut in the same manner? Through the repellent effect exerted by the contrast,
which on a higher plane was also the role played by his irony, the learner would be
compelled to understand that he had essentially to do with himself, and that the
inwardness of the truth is not the comradely inwardness with which two bosom friends
walk arm in arm, but the separation with which each for himself exists in the truth."
568
If you as the student choose him as your guide, and if he as the teacher accepts you,
what will follow? You should not have mistaken or exaggerated notions about this
relation, should not imagine, for instance, as so many have imagined, that within a week
of acceptance you will have supernormal experiences, magically attain the transcendent
insight, or receive hour-by-hour watchful care from him. The path is a lifetime one; it
may well run into several lifetimes. For the first and second things to happen is to run
contrary to the laws of nature. His own work is so widespread and so surprisingly
varied, his correspondence so large, his writing labours so important, that it is physically
impossible for a teacher continuously to pay personal attention to the several hundred
individuals seeking his help. What help then may you legitimately expect from him?
You may expect help in the three branches of this path: the development of
philosophical intelligence, the practice of mystical meditation, and the living of a wise
and virtuous existence. Concerning the first item, your intellectual difficulties questions
and problems will be cleared up through advanced disciples or through the post or, less
frequently, at personal interviews. Concerning the second item, you will be given a
practical initiation at a personal meditation with him, which may even be repeated a
number of times if possible. In addition you may be given the same privilege with his
advanced disciples. But beyond this you must travel your own path. You must faithfully
study the needful books, carry on the regular meditations, and try to adjust your actions
to your ideals for yourself and by yourself. You cannot omit any part of this work and
then rightfully expect the teacher to carry you forward to successful achievement of the
goal. He may be there to direct, inspire, and encourage your work, but that does not
absolve you from doing the work itself. When Buddha was asked by critics if all his
disciples acted according to his teaching, he frankly answered: "Some do and some do
not." The critics exclaimed, "How is it that even your own disciples do not follow you?"
So Buddha explained, "My task is merely to show the path. Some tread it and others do
not."
569
The master must have the continued co-operation of the disciple, if he is to do his best.
570
The expectations of disciples, their high estimate of his character and notion of his
outlook, may help to make him what he is.
571
The disciple who does not follow the path pointed out to him, who obeys only when it is
easy or convenient to obey, commits fraud and does insult to his master.
572
The student's delight in learning must be matched by the master's delight in giving.
573
The student's faith must meet the teacher's patience and the teacher's knowledge and
integrity must be such as to inspire confidence in the student.
574
It is better in every way that the teacher should belong to the same sex as the disciple.
575
The attitude of the student towards his teacher is of great importance to the student,
because it lays an unseen cable from him to the teacher, and along that cable pass to and
fro the messages and help which the teacher has to give. The teacher can never lose
contact with the student by going to another part of the world. That unseen cable is
elastic and it will stretch for thousands of miles, because the World-Mind consciousness
will travel almost instantly and anywhere. Contact is not broken by increasing physical
distance. It is broken by the change of heart, the alteration of mental attitude by the
student towards the teacher. If the attitude is wrong, then the cable is first weakened and
finally snapped. Nothing can then pass through and the student is really alone.
576
Trust lays the cable and trust keeps it in place. Doubt severs the cable and mistrust
destroys it altogether. Therefore it is prudent and proper for a would-be disciple to clear
his doubts and answer his questions before choosing the teaching which he is to
approach as his faith, and not after the choice has been made.
577
It is essential for aspirants to realize that in such a relationship it is the mental attitude,
especially the faith and devotion--rather than outward association and physical contact--
that is of true importance.
578
Osmosis, the principle of absorption as a result of being with or near a thing or a person,
is active here as elsewhere.
579
It is not only needful to link up with the guide in a general way by a right attitude of
faith and devotion towards him but also to link up in a special way by a daily meditation
which seeks to put the disciple's mind in rapport with the guide's.
580
His silent influence can lift up the other man's inner being much more easily if the
disciple sits relaxed in body and emptied in mind.
581
A master may give out his teachings, methods, and instructions. Sooner or later some
among his followers--if not his opponents--will twist them, reinterpret them, modify
them, or even deform them. This process even starts during his lifetime, but becomes
considerable and important only after that--when he's no longer present to attend to
needed corrections. This shows that not all who hear him understand what they hear,
and that there are different levels of capacity among the followers.
582
The spiritual counsellor who takes personal advantage of the dependence placed upon
him or of the trust shown in him, thereby renders himself unfit for such a high position.
Therefore in his dealings with disciples it is best for him to maintain an independence in
practical affairs and worldly relationship as well as a cool detachment in social contact
and personal intercourse. It is inevitable that the disciples should feel hurt at such
impersonality and such objectivity, but therein lies a protection both for themselves and
for the teacher until such time as they are more developed, better balanced, more
controlled, and farther seeing. Then and then only is it possible for the teacher to revise
the relationship and make it not only a warmer one but even a more personal one, with
safety to both sides. Disciples who are not well-balanced and are somewhat neurotic
often try to get the teacher personally involved in their lives. For they want to be set free
from the need of developing themselves, the duty of improving their characters, the
burden of accepting their responsibilities, and the painfulness of working out emotional
problems which are merely the result of their own egoism. If the teacher succumbs to
their appeals, then they remain unevolved and the relationship itself remains
unpracticable. But if he firmly resists them he may, by such resistance, force a change in
their attitude and consequently an increase in their wisdom. In doing so however he
courts misunderstanding on the part of his disciples, who may first become bewildered
and later resentful. Affection may turn to anger for a time, and the disciple may even
withdraw altogether. If they are so foolish as to do this their development will not only
be stopped but also, what is worse, set back for months or years.
583
Possessive love is natural. We want to have and keep what we love. But when its object
is another human being, there is an inevitable desire for the return of our love, for the
restriction of their affection to us alone, so that what we give is not given in purity but
in extended selfishness. Hence when others love you they want to deprive you of your
freedom. But when the disciple loves you, he must give you your freedom.
584
It is also an error to believe that one disciple must necessarily associate with the other
disciples of the same teacher. Only where there is real temperamental harmony and
personal affinity should disciples associate together. Where these are lacking, it is much
wiser and safer not to do so. For then the evil forces take advantage of the chance to
develop disharmony, quarrels, ill-feeling, and even worse. This spoils the progress of
both.
585
The real business of any disciple is with the teacher, not with the other disciples. Such a
situation cannot be helped and must be accepted. Human beings are all born with
different characters and dispositions. Only the sage can harmonize with all; others must
recognize limitations.
586
If one cannot be happy with certain students, he must wish them well and then go his
own way. He must never allow himself to be drawn into quarrels for then the evil forces
become active.
587
The relationship between them is a beautiful but free one. If the disciple takes a
possessive attitude and tries to annex the teacher, if he betrays jealousy of other
disciples or demands as much attention as they get, he substitutes an egoistic for an
impersonal relationship, fails to understand its distinctively and uniquely free nature,
and thus spoils it.
588
He must insist on getting the same freedom from his disciples that he allows to them.
589
Whether physically together or physically apart, that is a true relationship between
master and disciple, husband and wife, friend and friend, which refusing to be tightly
possessive or personally demanding, is satisfied by the silent fact that the other exists at
all.
590
No guru can lead anyone to enlightenment if he himself is attached to the role of guru,
nor can any disciple ever receive enlightenment if he wants to play the role of disciple
forever. Both are suffering from attachments which prevent enlightenment. This is why
the whole thing becomes a stage play, whether serious or comical, in which the actors
are performing their personal parts. Even if they babble about the necessity of not
getting attached to the world, they are still attached to what they are supposed to be, that
is, questing. A truly enlightened man has no such attachment and unless he is invested
by the Higher Power with a special apostleship, or with a special mission, he would not
consider himself a guru, nor anyone else as a disciple.
591
The way of leaning upon a guide, or being carried by one, is a way which of itself can
never lead to the goal. It can only lead in the end to the superior way of struggling to
one's own knees again and again until one is strong enough to walk to the goal. The
master must not stand in the way, must not direct attention to himself unduly and at the
expense of seekers' own attraction to his central inner self. Sören Kierkegaard writes in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "A direct relationship between one spiritual being
and another, with respect to the essential truth, is unthinkable. If such a relationship is
assumed, it means that one of the parties has ceased to be spirit. This is something that
many a genius omits to consider, both when he helps people into the truth en masse, and
when he is complaisant enough to think that acclamation, willingness to listen, the
affixing of signatures, and so forth, is identical with the acceptance of the truth.
Precisely as important as the truth, and if one of the two is to be emphasized, still more
important, is the manner in which the truth is accepted. It would help very little if one
persuaded millions of men to accept the truth, if precisely by the method of their
acceptance they were transferred into error. Hence it is that all complaisance, all
persuasiveness, all bargaining, all direct attraction by means of one's own person,
reference to one's suffering for the cause, one's weeping over humanity, one's
enthusiasm--all this is sheer misunderstanding, a false note in relation to the truth, by
which, in proportion to one's ability, one may help a job-lot of human beings to get an
illusion of truth. Socrates was an ethical teacher, but he took cognizance of the non-
existence of any direct relationship between teacher and pupil, because the truth is
inwardness, and because this inwardness in each is precisely the road which leads them
away from one another. It was presumably because he understood this, that he was so
happy about his unfavourable outward appearance."
592
The relation between a pupil and his teacher can be based upon complete submission
and dependence on authority, or it can be based on a reasonable freedom and moderate
self-reliance.
593
The belief common in India and the Near East that a guru must take over your mind and
your life is welcomed by the weak or misinformed here too. But it forms no part of
philosophical teaching, practice, and training.
594
The rule of absolute submission to a master may be as unsafe to follow as the rule of
absolute independence from a master.
595
The problem is one of reconciling the giving of complete faith to the teacher and the
keeping alive of one's inner freedom to think for oneself and to receive intuition from
oneself.
596
No master has the right to ask any candidate for discipleship to surrender himself
absolutely, to place himself unreservedly in the master's hands and to obey
unquestioningly the master's orders. The trust demanded should arise of its own accord
by progressive degrees as the relationship proceeds and develops, and as the master
proves by his conduct and effectiveness to be fully worthy of it.
597
Because he gives the master devotion he does not also have to give him idolatry.
598
His disciples are taught how to unite independent thinking with loyal feeling in their
attitude toward him. This satisfies them both.
599
There are those who think that he neglects to answer his mail. Because he leaves their
letters so long unanswered, they conclude that he means to drop them out of his life.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is true that his mail accumulates for long
periods of time. But it is equally true that he lacks the staff needed to handle it, that the
pressure of work like writing and meditation and research notes leaves him little
remaining time. However, those who have met him personally and call themselves his
disciples often cannot understand his behaviour so he gives this published explanation.
Once inner contact is established by a single physical meeting it is not necessary to have
further ones with the guide although they may be helpful. Sri Aurobindo granted only a
single minute to each individual at his first or later meeting with a disciple or a
candidate for discipleship. Thus it is evident that he does not consider more than sixty
seconds really necessary to establish it. Not only are further physical meetings not
necessary but even further personal action on his part, such as writing letters to the
disciples are also unnecessary even though they may be helpful. Thus a spiritual guide
does not need to do anything physically or write anything personally to keep up the
internal contact, it being kept up by the student's remembrance, devotion, faith, and
meditation.
Then again he cannot accept the position of personal counsellor under the guise of being
spiritual teacher. That is not his work. Most students who keep on failing to recognize
this fact against all previous and present warnings and who send letter after letter with
every fluctuation of their personal moods and fortunes, in an attempt to wrest advice or
intervention from him, may force him to break the external contact with him until such
time as they do realize what the true situation is. If he were to adopt a counselling
position and to agree to show students how to apply the philosophical teaching to every
change of their own personal life, he would soon have no time to give out those
teachings at all. Consequently he must refuse to respond to all these attempts often
openly but sometimes hidden, often naïve but sometimes cunning, to get him personally
involved in the life of the seeker or to mix both their personal problems together. So
many of his correspondents try to force him into this highly personal guru-student
relationship, and thus to impose their own responsibilities upon his shoulders, that he
has to fall into lengthy periods of silence to protect himself. Moreover, if he were to
respond to the emotional or worldly problems in the way such response is desired, it
would only mean the downfall of both of them and the breakdown of their pure
relationship. To maintain this purity, to safeguard the relationship itself, and to protect
the master as well as the seeker, the proper teaching must be given from the start and
that is: the teacher must be regarded as a symbol, not as a person. He is to be considered
merely as an agent for that which he represents, not as just another human being
entering into a human relation with the disciple. Often the beginner, finding that the
teacher does not fully respond to his emotional craving for continuous personal
attention, soon becomes disappointed. This feeling may develop until it reaches a
critical stage where one of two things may happen. Either he will fail to pass the test, for
so it becomes, and will withdraw altogether from the relationship--perhaps even
maligning the guide--or he will continue his trust, gain a new point of view, and make
the needed change to a higher attitude in the end. If, however, he allows his egoism or
emotion to lead him into disobedience of this rule, he will only endanger the
relationship. If he persists in this disobedience, he will even find it brought to an end for
a time. So few understand what is really involved in this relationship, so many
misunderstand it and are therefore disappointed by it in the beginning or along the way,
that the teacher prefers with rare exceptions of well-advanced cases, not to enter into it
outwardly at all but instead to offer a little friendly help without obligation.
600
No real master is ever afraid that he might lose any particular disciple. He takes
possession of no one and leaves everyone as free as he found them. He understands
quite well that the man's need or search and his own higher self's gracious response
brought the master into the picture as an indirect medium through which the response
could operate. He understands, too, that all the instruction and advice, the uplift and
help which he gives the disciple originate ultimately and really within the man himself,
as the latter will one day discover when he has developed his own direct access to them,
and therefore refuses to regard the relationship between them egotistically.
Master as symbol
796
The soul will lead him by stages to itself. Hence it may lead him to reverence for some
scriptural personage or to devotion toward some living master and then, when these
have fulfilled their purpose, away and beyond them. For the quest is from the world of
things and men to the world of Mind's void; from thoughts and forms to the thought-free
formless Divine.
797
The attraction to a teacher, which often happens involuntarily, is due in part to the fact
that the seeker does not know God and has never seen God. But he can know and see
this human being, the teacher who does know God.
798
To the groping aspirant, a true Master must ever be both the symbol of the divine
existence and the channel of its power.
799
The Infinite Power seems too inaccessible and too exalted to be mindful of human
needs, whereas the Messenger or Prophet or Master, being human himself, seems much
nearer and more approachable, more likely and more willing to take an interest in those
needs.
800
The notion of pure spirit or even of the higher self is too vague for most aspirants, and
hence too difficult as a theme for concentration. The mental image of an inspired man
gives their thoughts something concrete to fasten on and their aspirations something
immediately recognizable to turn towards. Here, then, is a prime value of having a
human ideal.
801
The master is a visible and manifested presence and therefore one that he can more
easily recognize, more quickly get help from, than the invisible and unmanifested
higher self within him.
802
Here arises the need of a Symbol, to which his heart can yield loving devotion and on
which his mind can practise intense concentration.
803
Because so few can even detect their true self, or hear its voice in conscience, or sense
its presence in intuition, the infinite wisdom of God personifies it in the body of another
man for their convenience, inspiration, and aid.
804
The master is the symbol of the Higher Power for everyone who feels affinity with him.
805
The vivid actuality, the personal freshness of a living and once-met Symbol can never
be equalled, for most people, by the historic actuality of a dead one or the mental
freshness of a distant but never seen one.
806
The Master embodies the disciple's conscience.
807
Jesus described himself as the Door; the Bab of Persia referred to himself as the Gate.
What did these prophets mean? The average seeker needs a symbol, a form through
which he can pass to the formless. Such a form then becomes a door or gate for him.
The mental image of the prophet who most attracts him provides him with it.
808
Although there is no need to follow the herd into fanatical guru-adulation there is a need
to regard him properly for what he is--a channel for higher forces, an instrument for the
higher power--and so deserving homage and reverence.
809
To see what such a man is in bearing and conduct is itself a silent form of instruction.
810
The fact that the spiritual guide has a human form gives something for the disciple's
imagination to take hold of and keep firmly concentrated on. A properly controlled,
wisely directed imagination can be a powerful aid in mystical exercises.
811
Another value of a master is that in his person we can verify under everyday conditions
the fact of a superior state of his and the practical importance of the philosophic ideal.
812
If he has such faith in and devotion to his teacher, he should make use of this attitude
not to rest until he himself is all that his teacher is. The latter can be used as an example
of what can be done by the human being who is determined to live as he is meant to
live, and to be as he is meant to be.
813
He is to keep the Ideal ever before his eyes, and to recognize that it over-limns the
personality of his master.
814
The picture of the Ideal is held in his subconscious mind all the time and becomes the
pattern to be imitated, the invisible Master to be followed with faith and with love.
815
It is affiliation to the master's mind, not propinquity to his body, that will bring these
benefits. But where both are possible, the result will be better.
816
It will not be until a late stage that he will wake up to the realization that the real giver
of Grace, the real helper along this path, the real master is not the incarnated master
outside but the Overself inside his own heart. What the living master does for him is
only to arouse his sleeping intuition and awaken his latent aspiration, to give him the
initial impetus and starting guidance on the new quest, to point out the obstructions to
advancement in his individual character and to help him deal with them.
817
What he feels about the Master's power may be true but it is a sign of his elementary
state that he places it outside himself.
818
The true meaning of a master to the disciple's understanding should be as the presence
and force, the revelation and voice of his own inmost spiritual being.
819
Let us be more concerned with the quest of right principles rather than impressive
persons, for this will put our attitudes to all events on the right plane. Because this
simple truism was forgotten most of the religious and mystical movements have gone
astray.
820
The proper attitude is to regard the Master as a symbol of the higher power, so that the
veneration and devotion proffered are directed towards that power. To look upon him as
an intermediary, between the disciple and God, is to fall into the error of looking outside
his own self for that which, when he finds it, will be within him and nowhere else.
821
Think more deeply than the conventional mass of guru-followers dare to do and you
will come to perceive that in the end there is only one Teacher for each man, his own
Overself; that all other and outer gurus are merely channels which IT uses. "It is He who
lives inside and speaks through the outer guru's voice," declares a Tibetan text. Why not
go direct to the source?
822
The higher self is the ultimate spiritual guide whom he is to revere and the real spiritual
helper on whom he is to rely.
823
When disciples follow a teacher, what is it that they really follow? Suppose the master
advocated cruelty and preached selfishness--would the disciples still continue to follow
him? Obviously, they would not. This is because their own inward feeling would reject
the teaching. It shows that they are really following the teacher within themselves, the
voice of their own Higher Self. It is this Higher Self within them which makes them
seek out and respond to a true teacher, for he is really an outward embodiment of this
Self.
824
The outer objectified master is not the real one but only a shadow cast by the sun inside.
His disciples too often make the mistake of relating themselves to his body, and placing
overmuch emphasis on that visible relationship, when what really matters is relating
their mind to his mind. This can be done only within themselves. Only in their own
higher self can they meet and know their master.
825
Those who interest themselves in personalities take the wrong path. A master's ideas are
the best part of him. Let students take them and not trouble themselves about his
appearance, career, traits, and habits.
826
We must make a distinction between a doctrinal principle and the human personality
who serves as the vehicle for such a principle. The principle will live when the
personality is dead. Our absolute loyalty, therefore, must be bestowed on what is
immortal, not on what is mortal. The human disseminator of the principle should
receive only a conditional allegiance. The pure Idea may incarnate itself in the man but
he may sully, betray, or pollute it with his human error, prejudice, or selfishness.
827
The embodied master, being human, will have some or other of the human
imperfections. Sooner or later the disciple will note and become critical of them or
disturbed by them. But the inner Light is perfect and will rouse only admiration,
devotion, and satisfaction.
828
I have never said that the disciple should not feel love for the teacher, for that inevitably
arises of itself and is indeed the basic force that draws the one to the other. Without it
there could be no discipleship. But it is necessary to understand that the love is really
felt for the divine presence which is using the teacher. It is not felt for the guru (teacher)
as a person. That is the correct condition. If, however, it is diverted to the guru's person,
then it is spoilt, rendered impure, and the true relationship is broken. In fact, idolatry
sets in. The emotions of attraction and reverence which are felt need not be given up,
but they should be directed to the true source, the higher power which is using the
teacher, and not towards his personality at all.
829
The human symbol under which the devotee receives his inspirations and illuminations
in vision or feeling is, after all, personal to him. It is not a universal one, not for all
mankind at all times and in all places. Consequently his onward progress will one day
demand of him that he transcend it. However useful and even indispensable it has been,
it will best fulfil itself when he is able to forget it.
830
It is rarely and reluctantly that a true master will give personal interviews. He finds that
so many enquirers come either with an idealized preconceived picture of what he looks
like (or ought to look like) or with certain prejudices which are activated when they see
him, that in many cases the good work done by his writings may be nullified by the
disappointment consequent on the meeting. This is because few persons are sufficiently
nonmaterialistic to look behind physical appearances for the mental reality of the man
interviewed. Most come carrying a preconceived picture of some perfectly wonderful,
perfectly handsome, perfectly saintlike Perfect Friend. The ideal is not realized. They
leave the meeting disillusioned. It is better for their sakes that he remain behind the
barrier of written words and not let them meet him face to face. How many prefer
pigmentation to proficiency as a standard of spiritual wisdom, as shown by the numbers
who cannot accept a dark-skinned Indian for teacher! How many are held prisoners by
their preconceptions! How many reject both a teacher and his truth merely because they
dislike the shape of his nose! What hope could a bandy-legged master have to find any
disciples? Of course, the seeker who confounds him with his body is really still unfit for
philosophy and ought not be given any interview until life and reflection have prepared
him to take proper advantage of it. It is unfortunate that this human weakness is so
common. This is one of the lesser reasons why the philosophic discipline has to be
imposed on candidates for philosophy as a preliminary to be undergone before its
threshold can be crossed. The real teacher is hard to behold. For he can be seen partly
with the heart, partly with the mind, but rarely with the eye of flesh. He is the invisible
man, whom they can recognize only by sensing, not by seeing him.
831
The duty is laid upon a master to show the value of his virtue by his conduct and to
attract men towards it by his example. It is not the man that we are to reverence but his
noble attributes and his inspired mind.
832
In the final reckoning we are not the disciple of this or that man but rather the disciple
of the Overself.
833
Gautama saw much evidence among the Hindus of their traditions of guru-worship and
their cults of personal adulation. To prevent this arising among those who accepted his
teaching, he commanded that his own person was to remain unpictured in art, ungraven
in image. But this was too much to ask of sentimental, devotional, and emotional
humanity.
834
Jesus tried to turn the minds of his followers from the man to Spirit, from the body to
Overself but, like Muhammed, Buddha, and Krishna, failed. He told them not even to
call anyone Master, nor even to call him Rabbi. But history shows how greatly they
disobeyed his instruction.
835
Even if the Symbol were a man devoid of spiritual power and light, its effects would
still appear beneficially within his life. This is because he has imagined it to be powerful
and enlightening and the creative power of his own thought produces some benefit. If
however the Symbol were an evil and living man, then the effects would be more or less
harmful. This is because a subconscious telepathic working exists between the two
minds through the intense devotion and passive submission of one to the other. But if
the Symbol were a genuine living mystic, then the devotee's thought could draw from
him--and without his conscious will or knowledge--benefits greater than in the first
case. It is possible to get still greater benefits if the seeker attaches himself to and
becomes the disciple of a living genuine sage. For to the above-mentioned effects will
be added the latter's deliberately given help and blessing.
836
Despite popular superstition and wishful thinking it is true that no master can bestow his
own enlightenment on others as a permanent gift. But does this make his attainment
valueless to them? No, for it proves to them both that the Overself is and that man may
commune with it. The few who are more sensitive or more perceptive gain more from
personal contact with him--either inspiration for their quest or, if more fortunate, a
momentary glimpse of the far-off goal.
837
The Master as Symbol: All this talk of master and disciple is vain and futile. You
yourself, when attracted to a certain man in whom you have faith, set him up as a master
in your own mind, keep him there for a number of years, and eventually drop him when
you no longer feel the need of a human symbol of the Infinite. All this time it is your
own higher self which is guiding you, even when it is using the mental image of the
guide you may have selected for the purpose. All this time you were moving in the
direction of the discovery of your Overself inwardly even when you seemed to be
moving towards an external master. If you find ABC a helpful symbol, use him as your
master, but do not ask him to confirm this usage for the choice was yours. No
confirmation from him is called for. Why doubt the guidance of your Overself? If you
accept the master in full faith, by that very act you are showing faith in the leading
given you by the Overself. Your obedience to it is enough. It has accepted you or it
would not be drawing you inwards, as it is. ABC is one with it. Therefore how could the
master refuse you? But do not lose sight of the inwardness of the whole process by
going to him for an outward sign. Do not materialize it. Make use of him if you wish to,
and if he is what you believe him to be, your faith will not be wasted. Your act of mental
creation will not lead to hallucination so long as you know that the true ABC is not his
body but his mind.
838
The humble appeal of the seeking soul direct to God (or one's own Overself) will in
time bring direct help without the intermediary of any human being. If anyone believes
that he has entered into realization solely through the blessing of a master, then there
will surely be a disillusionment one day. The real duty of a master is to point out the
correct path at each different stage of the aspirant's life, to keep up his faith until he
knows the truth for himself and not through somebody else's words, to inspire him by
his own example and encouragement never to desert the quest and to show that its
benefits are worthwhile, to give his grace in the sense of taking a personal interest in the
student's progress and telepathically to keep the student within his own consciousness.
839
If discovery of Truth is the discovery of the answer to "Who Am I?" then what better
Master can there be than the "I" itself--the unknown Knower rather than the familiar,
known ego? Yet so few seekers have taken it on trust: nearly all venture it in
dependence on some other man. And what can that Master do in the end better than
teach his disciple to see his own divine face?
840
"A visible Murshid (Master) is a gateway unto the Unseen Master and a portal unto
God, the Unknown. But yet, in the end, neither God, Master, nor Murshid appear in the
`I Am'*t"--Mayat Khan.
841
The argument as to whether a living master alone can "save" men or whether a dead one
can also do so, is a fallacious one. No man is saved by another man. His own soul is his
real saviour. When he believes that a master, living or dead, is saving him, his own soul
is actually at work within him at the time but is using the mental image of the master to
serve as a focus-point for his side--that is, the self-effort side--of the process. Thousands
who never knew the living Jesus have felt the real presence and dynamic power of Jesus
enough to convert them from sinful to Godly lives. It was the idea of Jesus which they
really knew, not the man himself, as it was grace of their Overselves which was the true
presence and power they admittedly felt. They concentrated their faith on the idea but
the reality behind it was the unknown Overself. They needed the idea--any idea--as a
point in their own form-time-and-space personal consciousness where the formless,
timeless, placeless, impersonal soul could manifest itself to them.
842
There are hands in every country, among every people, outstretched to God for inward
help. The responsibility to answer these prayers rests therefore primarily with God. Any
man who apparently gives the needed help is only an intermediary. Neither the power
nor the wisdom which he manifests is his own. If he perceives that fact, he will be
humbled by it.
843
The true teacher acts by proxy, as it were, for the aspirant's Overself until such time as
the aspirant himself is strong enough to find his own way. Until that moment the teacher
is a shining lamp, but after it he will withdraw because he does not want to stand
between the seeker and the latter's own self-light which gradually leads the disciple to
dispense with him!
844
With the thought of the higher power, an image will spontaneously spring up in his
mind. It will be the image of that man who manifests or represents it to him.
845
The philosophically correct attitude is to cherish the deepest reverence for him, to
remember and commune often with his kindling interior presence, and to control the
lower self by the ideal pattern he affords.
846
If he rejects praise it is because he wants it bestowed where it really belongs, and not
upon himself to the denial of that source. It belongs to his master or to the Overself; the
power behind all his praised activities is not the ego's. For by such properly placed
credit, the world may come to know, or believe, there is that higher power.
847
"He who sees the Teaching, sees me."--Buddha
848
Much emotion-born fallacious writing and consequent belief prevails in Western and
Oriental mystical circles. The question must be asked: if a dead master is just as good
or, as one South Indian ashram now claims, even better than a living one, why do any
masters trouble to reincarnate at all if they can exert their influence or give their training
just as effectively by staying where they are? And this question applies not only to the
minor lesser-known teachers of small groups but with equal force to the major prophets
like Buddha and Jesus.
Here is the point at which part of the confusion and much of the fallacy arise. People
generally have been led by society, including their parents, to adopt and follow one of
these major Prophets. This is done partly in the belief that he is still in touch with them
from a heaven-world, partly out of unquestioning acceptance of his revelation, and
partly because of the social necessity of belonging to the membership of some
organized church. The revelation and the church continue to survive the prophet's death
and thus continue to be available for the help of followers born in later centuries. But
the vehicle through which he himself was able to communicate directly, the intellect and
body--that is, the ego--have ceased to exist. There is no further possibility of such
communication. Where it seems to occur, the mental image of the prophet has been
assumed by the Higher Self of the devotee to satisfy his demand and need. The
usefulness of a living teacher to those who have no such experience or to those who are
uncommitted to a deceased one, is obvious.
849
When the master dies, the disciple will find that there is no one to take his place. Such
an affinity cannot be duplicated. But what he gave the disciple will live on inside him.
How can he be like the unthinking hordes who yield to their passions without
compunction?
850
When a master is no longer living in flesh and blood, what will be the effect upon his
relations with others? Those who are willing to use their reason rather than their
sentimentality upon the matter can fall upon the fact itself. For those who are still in the
elementary stages--which usually means the mass of his followers--he is no longer
operative.
851
Some persons, deprived of their guru by a sudden change of circumstance, or by death,
have found themselves bewildered, at a loss, or even have collapsed with a nervous
breakdown.
852
What he leaves behind is not himself but the revelations he received, the instructions he
gave, and the techniques he favoured.
853
Whether it is really those who publicly and loudly proclaim how close they were to the
Master who were so, or those who silently and secretly practised what he taught, the
world is often in no position to judge.
854
If there is a genuine inner relationship between them, then he will feel that a part of the
master has never left him, even though the master is himself long dead.
855
If he is still alive, the personal help of a master is certainly valuable. If he is not, his
spirit is too remote from the physical world to be helpful to the ordinary aspirant in any
other than a general impersonal way. His influence is then carried by writings left
behind, by the thought-forms he left during his lifetime in the mental atmosphere here,
and by the few disciples closest to him in the inner sense. Otherwise, only an advanced
yogi, able to raise his consciousness by meditation to the same plane as the master's,
could get any contact at all. It is as necessary to his disciples that he leave them
deprived of his guidance as well as of the consolation of his presence as it was earlier
necessary for them to have them while he was still on earth. After all, it is their own
Overself that they are seeking. They must begin to seek it just where it is--within
themselves and not in someone else. The time has then come when, if they are to grow
at all, they must cease drawing on his light and strength and begin drawing on their
own. The very hour of his departure from them is appointed in their destiny by the
infinite intelligence, which has sufficient reasons for making it then, and not earlier or
later. If they must henceforth strive for direct touch with the Infinite and no longer lean
on the encouragement of an intermediary, this is because they are at the stage to make
better progress that way, whatever their personal emotions may argue to the contrary.
856
If the life of Jesus be viewed symbolically--as the lives of such divine men often are in
part--the same necessity, at a certain time, of physical separation from disciples to bring
them into mental nearness, appears. Jesus told them: "I tell you the truth, it is expedient
for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.
When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth."
Graduation
857
The question whether a rejection of the guru is a necessary stage in order to find the
Truth for oneself can be immediately answered. It is not at all necessary for anyone to
reject the guru at any stage. But--at a certain stage it may be advisable to withdraw
physically from him. That is a matter for guru or disciple to decide, and also the length
of time for such an absence.
858
"In time when the relationship is sufficiently established between master and pupil the
pupil has to continue on his own," wrote the Sufi Master Insar-I-Kamil. This is
important but insufficiently known.
859
The teacher is a support needed by the disciple to help him progress through successive
stages of the quest, as they are stages of thinning illusion. When he stands on the
threshold of reality, then the last and thinnest illusion of all must be left behind, the
support of any being outside himself, apart from himself, for within him is the infinite
life-power.
860
It is written in the Hindu texts that by living in the company of a guru, saint, or sage one
acquires a measure of his enlightenment, holiness, or wisdom. How widely different this
measure can be, how ever little and how very large, only exceptional personal
experience or a long, comparative study of the records can tell. Side by side with this
text, to amplify or correct it, ought to be put, and well mused over, a little incident I
once observed in South India, in which the principal character was a very earnest young
monk, Swami Dandapani. He had lived for five years, on and off, as an office assistant
in the ashram and as a devoted follower of Ramana Maharshi. One day he was expelled
forthwith and ordered to leave within twenty-four hours. At night, when everyone had
retired to sleep, he went to his guru to inform him of the expulsion and to take farewell.
At the end of this occasion he wept. The Maharishee restrained him: "Don't be a fool!
You should know that this physical Sat-sang [personal company in an ashram] is only
for beginners. When one advances to a certain stage it is better to go away if further and
real advancement is to be made. For then one is compelled to seek, and find, the inner
guru, within the mind and heart. Even the little birds have to get away from their
parents' nest when they have grown wings: they cannot stay always in it. So too the
disciples have to practise away from the ashram what they have learnt here, and find
there the peace they found here." I followed the Swami's further history as he was a
good friend. Years later he became a guru in his own turn, acquired a number of
disciples, and settled in his own native village in his own ashram. My own observation,
farther afield, is that some seem to acquire nothing at all, whereas others acquire a great
deal, from Sat-sang. Whether this acquisition comes about by a kind of osmosis, or by
instruction and discussion, or, more likely, by a resultant arising from all three, the
necessity of looking within oneself, working with oneself, and depending on oneself
cannot be evaded.
861
Sri Ramakrishna told seeking newcomers: "Keep on visiting this place." But he also told
them: "It is necessary in the beginning to come here off and on." I once heard Sri
Ramana Maharshi tell a young Indian disciple who wept at being forced to leave him:
"Living in ashrams is only for beginners. The more advanced have to go away and
develop from there. You have been here five years. If you want to progress you can now
do so best by going away from here."
862
The animal which at a certain age deserts its offspring to force them into self-reliance is
like the rare guru who tells the overstayed learner it is time to leave.
863
But the law of life is growth. Is he to remain a passive receiver of someone else's
teaching in perpetuity? Can he stand still under another man's shadow or is he to emerge
out of pupilage into the light?
864
The true teacher so develops his disciples that they can come closer and closer to the
time when they can find their way without him. All his service is intended to lead them
toward graduation, when he himself will no longer be needed.
865
No disciple does his master adequate honour until he himself is able to stand and walk
alone.
866
The man in whom intuition is well-developed or who is able to practise meditation
sufficiently to hear the Interior Word, can manage without a master.
867
If he has found the correct path and has travelled with a teacher as far as this stage,
thenceforth he may travel by himself. He is now free for he is now able to guide
himself.
868
In the end he must free himself inwardly from all things and, finally, both from
whatever teacher he has and from the quest itself. Then only can he stand alone within
and one with God.
869
Whether or not it is historically true that there was the battle mentioned in the
Bhagavad Gita is unimportant to us of the twentieth century. But the psychological
interpretation of it as meaning that Arjuna was ordered to fight not his parents and
relatives but his attachment to them, is important. It is the same teaching as that of
Jesus' hard saying about the necessity of taking up the cross and denying father and
mother. All this we can understand even where we cannot follow it into practice. But it
is bewildering to be told that a time comes in the disciple's development when
attachment to the teacher must also be broken. He must free himself from the very man
who has shown him the path to liberation from every other form of attachment. His
liberation is to become total and absolute.
870
In the last verse spoken by Arjuna in the Gita, he declares that all his doubts are gone
and that he has gained recognition of the true Self. Hence all his questions cease. His
enquiry into Truth has come to an end. Nothing more is said either by him or his
teacher. Both enter into a state of silence and this silence is revealed as the highest,
because the spirit is beyond both the agitations of intellect and the babble of speech. It is
best felt and known, understood and communicated, through such inner stillness.
871
Do not stray into waters that are too deep for you. Do not try to grasp the mystery of
your master. You cannot do it and you will never do it, for if ever you came to the very
edge of succeeding in doing it both you and he would disappear from your ken. Do not
seek to touch the untouchable. It is better to accept him for what he is and let it go at
that than to indulge in useless speculations and erroneous fancies. It is not that your are
to repress the faculty of enquiry, but that you are to exercise it in the right place and at
the right time. Your task now is to understand yourself and to understand the world.
When you have come near the close of completing those two tasks, you will then be
faced with the further task of comprehending the true character of your master but not
till then. For then only will you be able to comprehend him correctly; before then you
will only get a wrong notion, which is far worse than no notion at all. The last lesson of
these words is: trust him where you cannot understand; believe in him where yours.